Catholic Europe has some of the highest divorce rates in the world. In Spain, 61 percent of all marriages end in divorce. In Portugal it is 68 percent and in Belgium the figure is 71 percent. While these figures may point toward the social acceptability of divorce in these papal countries, to think that divorce is cheap, easy, and treated as trivial in Europe would be wrong. As one divorce lawyer put it, divorce is characterized by “the emotional pain of separation, incomprehension about the legal process, and conflict with regard to the division of property and assets.”

In the famously liberal and socially tolerant Protestant Netherlands, 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce, a ‘small-scale’ divorce can cost between 5,000 and 10,000 euros in legal fees, and every year a further 73,000 children are affected by divorce. But Dutch children are known to be some of the happiest people on earth and there is no social stigma attached to divorce.

Read more: manilatimes.net

ALBAY Rep. Edcel Lagman on Monday said there was no necessity for President Rodrigo Duterte to declare a state of lawlessness following the blast in Davao City’s Roxas Avenue night market that claimed 14 lives.

In an interview, Lagman also warned that the declaration of lawless violence may pave the way for the declaration of martial law and the suspension of writ of habeas corpus.

“It is not legally necessary to make a declaration of lawless violence. Even without that declaration, we are sending wrong signals. It would alarm the people that there could be a tendency of the president exercising extraordinary powers under the Constitution, like the declaration of martial law or suspension of writ of habeas corpus,” Lagman said.

Read more: inquirer.net

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said Mr. Duterte’s move in the wake of the bombing that left 14 people dead and scores wounded was “alarming” yet “legally unnecessary” since the President could call out the military even without such declaration.

“What has been happening unabated and with impunity are the extrajudicial killings perpetrated by police authorities and their civilian cohorts,” Lagman said. “State violence begets violence by nonstate actors.”

Read more: inquirer.net

The declaration of a state of lawlessness appears to be legally unnecessary, even as it is alarming, for the following reasons:

1. It is a reactive declaration confronting lawless situations which does not confer any extraordinary emergency powers to the President.

2. Without such declaration, the President, as Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, can still summon the Armed Forces of the Philippines to suppress lawless violence in any part of the country, cause the installation of police blockages and checkpoints without unwarranted searches, as well as impose limited and reasonable curfew hours.

3. If there is any importance attached to such declaration, it is to convey and stress the resolve of the President to contain and apprehend lawless elements and exercise the powers vested in him.

4. The downside or negative effects of such proclamation are:

   1. It unduly alarms the people of the President’s emerging exercise of extraordinary emergency powers like the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and declaration of martial law;

   2. Abuses of civil, political and human rights could happen in its implementation;

   3. The nationwide coverage of the declaration projects a grim scenario of countrywide lawlessness, where in fact the overwhelming majority of the areas in the country are peaceful.

What has been happening unabated and with impunity are the extrajudicial killings perpetrated by police authorities and their civilian cohorts.

The incessant calls for the cessation of these daily incidents of lawless violence have been unheeded.

State violence begets violence by non-state actors.