Analysis: The Philippines is one of only two countries in the world where divorce still isn't legalised, but all of that may soon change
On 22 May 2024, the Absolute Divorce Act (House Bill 9349) was approved on its third and final reading in the Philippine House of Representatives. The bill, filed in September of 2023, gathered 131 votes in favour, 109 against, and 20 abstentions. The next step for the bill is to undergo Senate deliberations. Once the Senate approves it, it will be recommended to the president who will either veto it or sign it into law.
Despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church and a few members of Congress, including former Senate President Vicente Sotto III, the bill’s author, Edcel Lagman, is optimistic that it will finally become law in 2025. Lagman, a representative for the Albay province, has hinted that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. would approve the bill before the next Congress starts in July 2025.
At present, estranged couples legally married in this predominantly Catholic country may only seek a legal separation, declaration of nullity, and civil annulment. Taking pride as the only country left that is still not fully "de-Christianised," it is arguable that Catholic institutions and religious doctrines had, and still have, a strong impact on the country, evidenced by their influence on the country's Family Code. 'Protecting the sanctity of marriage’ in this culture generally adheres to Catholic beliefs that marriage is a sacramental bond between two Catholics. Hence why divorce is lacking, and legal options are limited to make it harder for citizens to nullify marriages and remarry after separation.
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According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were 1.6 million separated or annulled individuals in the country in 2020 - a significant increase from the recorded 1.2 million in 2015. Cohabitation is still viewed as taboo by many citizens, but a recent report shows that the number of unmarried couples living together is increasing and slowly being embraced into the culture. Despite the increase in the number of separations, marriages were recorded growing by 1.5 million from 2015 to 2020.
But what happens when marriages don’t work in the Philippines?
Among the three actions that Filipino citizens can take to legally separate from their partners, annulment is the most sought-after. Annulment is the only option among the three that can both invalidate the marriage and allow parties to remarry. However, filing for an annulment is not an easy journey.
In the Philippines, an annulment is synonymous with an expensive and lengthy procedure, which may bear uncertain results due to the limited grounds that the court accepts before granting the marriage invalid. These grounds are the following: underage marriage despite parental consent, marriages solemnised by an unauthorised officer, solemnised without a license, bigamous or polygamous marriages, fraudulent obtaining of consent, incurable STD, mistaken identity of one of the parties, failure to register and comply to the legal obligations of previous nullified marriages, and psychological incapacity. Out of all these, 'psychological incapacity' is the ground commonly used by petitioners when filing for an annulment, though a psychiatric evaluation is needed if psychological incapacity is presented as a ground for annulment.
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But the reality is that most Filipinos cannot afford to file for annulment hence why many remain married despite being stuck in abusive marriages. Those who find new partners do not bother to legally nullify their marriages for the same reason. The Philippines has a prevalent poverty incidence rate wherein 25.24 million individuals (22.4%) or 4.51 million families (16.4%), out of over 110 million overall population, are considered poor. Legally married people living with a different partner despite separation are labelled "living in sin" by the Church. Despite that, Filipinos generally tolerate these practices as they understand the economic perspective and challenges of going through the process of annulment.
How will the Absolute Divorce Act help Filipino citizens?
Under this bill, filing for a divorce will be faster as decisions might only take six to 12 months, on a case-by-case basis. There will also be a higher chance of approval as more grounds for divorce that were not covered by the annulment law are added, such as physical abuse, drug addiction, habitual alcoholism, chronic gambling, marital infidelity, and abandonment to name a few. A legalised divorce in a foreign country involving Filipino citizens will also be legally recognised locally without going through a judicial process. A mandatory 60-day cooling-off period after filing for a divorce will also be enacted. This means that when parties reconcile within the cooling-off period, the case will be dismissed. If the divorced parties decide to reconcile, their divorce decree can also be nullified. The cooling-off period doesn’t apply to any case involving violence against women and children.
The added grounds in the divorce bill are some of the common reasons why marriages don’t work in the Philippines. In 2022, about 14.5% of married Filipino females aged 15 to 49 experienced emotional, physical, and sexual violence by their current or former husbands or partners. Victims like "Ana" endured 19 years of physical attacks by her husband before she decided to leave. However, due to the absence of divorce, she couldn’t get away from her husband as she remained legally linked with him. Divorce Pilipinas Coalition is calling for an urgent legalisation of divorce due to cases like Ana’s. According to the group, being tied with an abusive partner turns a marital bond into bondage and a violation of basic human rights.
The bill is currently awaiting formal transmittal to the Senate. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines continues to uphold their opposition saying that the bill is anti-family, anti-children, and anti-marriage. However, for women like Ana, who is also a Catholic and regularly attends church masses, she doesn’t view it as such, but believes that it’s a human right that should be granted to every Filipino citizen, particularly to every Filipino woman.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
