Contact Details

Rm. N-411, House of Representatives, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
+63 2 931 5497, +63 2 931 5001 local 7370

Press Statements

The “inviolability” of marriage does not cast a marital union in an immovable stone because the Constitution itself does not prohibit the enactment of an absolute divorce law.

“Inviolability” prescribes a norm or standard for marriages but does not forbid the dissolution of a marriage once seriously warranted.

Fr. Joaquin Bernas led the Commissioners of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, which drafted the present Constitution, in unanimously advocating that Congress is not foreclosed in enacting absolute divorce despite the adoption in the Constitution of the concepts that marriage is a social institution, that it is inviolable and is the foundation of the family.

Press Statements

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre has no authority to anoint Janet Napoles as state witness in the multi-billion peso PDAF scam.

The special prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman, who is prosecuting Napoles, and the Sandiganbayan where the plunder cases against her are pending, are the ones vested with the authority to convert Napoles from an accused to a state witness.

Press Statements

It is grossly incorrect for President Rodrigo Duterte to claim that the Philippines’ ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is not effective for failure to publish such accession under the Civil Code.

Article 2 of the Civil Code which provides that “laws shall take effect after 15 days following the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette” or the alternative publication in a newspaper of general circulation under Executive Order No. 200 dated June 18, 1987, refers to the effectivity of laws or statutes enacted by the Congress.

Press Statements

The admission of Janet Napoles into the Witness Protection Program (WPP) even if “provisional” is utterly premature because of the absence of a prior mandatory determination that she is qualified to be discharged from her pending plunder cases to become a state witness.

This procedure is required by Section 10 of R.A. 6981 in relation to Section 17 of Rule 119 of the Rules of Court on criminal procedure.