Alarming news

Among the alarming news these days is the item about the endorsement of the Divorce Bill by the House committee on population and family for deliberation, revision and eventual approval of the Lower House in plenary session.

It looks like the Lower House of Congress is really bent on destroying our country. This is so because our Constitution itself expressly provides that “marriage as an inviolable social institution, is the foundation of the family” and the family on the other hand is the “foundation of the Nation” (Article XV Sections 1 and 2).  Hence the Constitution also mandates the State to protect and strengthen both marriage and the family (Article XV Section 2 and Article II Section 12). But with this Divorce Bill, which will dissolve a valid marriage bond, Congress is actually eroding marriage, the most basic foundation on which the family and the nation are deeply rooted.

The substitute Bill entitled “An Act Providing for Absolute Divorce and Dissolution of Marriage” integrates four other house bills introduced by Congressman Lagman, Speaker Alvarez, Congressman Barbers and the Gabriela women’s party-list group. The bill will supposedly give an aggrieved spouse a better alternative in getting out of an unbearable relationship.

It must be pointed out however that our Family Code already has adequate provisions on how to get out of unbearable marriages which do not undermine marriage as an “inviolable institution.” These are the provisions on annulment of marriage which only need improvement and revision to make it easier to obtain and more accessible to spouses. And this cannot be done by introducing the bill on absolute divorce because there is a great difference between annulment and absolute divorce. 

Annulment either refers to marriages which are considered by law as non-existent from the beginning because no valid marriage took place at all; or to marriages which have taken place and already exist but have some defects. In either case the marriage cannot yet be considered as an inviolable social institution and can thus be declared void or annulled. Absolute divorce on the other hand involves marriages which have no vice or defect at the time of celebration but are nevertheless dissolved for causes arising after the celebration like the “unbearable relationship” or “irreconcilable differences” of the spouses. In this case, there is a perfectly valid marriage which is an inviolable social institution. So if the said marriage is dissolved through the proposed Absolute Divorce Bill, the accepted public policy of the inviolability of marriage guaranteed by our Constitution will be infringed. 

It may not be amiss to point out in this connection that, with our existing laws protecting marriage and strengthening the family, we are the only country which continue to preserve and strengthen marriage and family ties under any circumstance like separation for quite a time because of need to work abroad; the only country where family members continue to respect and take care of their elders especially the sick and the infirm, instead of dumping them in nursing homes or homes for the aged; the only country where parents and siblings toil and sacrifice for the sake of other members of the family; the only country where the greater majority of husbands and wives continue to live together in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, as well as observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support.

Filipinos are indeed known worldwide to be faithful and true to their commitments especially to their marriage vows. But if absolute divorce is legalized here, this admirable trait will cease to exist, and the commitment to the marriage vows will become so fragile because marriage will be considered like an ordinary contract which can be violated anytime. With absolute divorce, couples who are striving to preserve their union will be given an easy way out thus opening the floodgates to more broken marriages. Divorce also countenances the practice of rush marriages where a person immediately marries the first man/woman he/she falls in love at first sight believing that he/she can get out of it at anytime the feeling or emotion dies down. When divorce is legalized, love will no longer be a decision but a mere feeling or emotion.

It is likewise fallacious to argue that divorce will be favorable to the innocent spouse especially the battered wife as it will enable her to easily get out of an unbearable marital relationship. On the contrary, it will be doing a great favor to the guilty spouse particularly the philandering and violent husband because divorce enables him to get out of a marital relationship by battering his wife or committing any acts constituting grounds for divorce and then remarry again and continue committing the same acts every time he wants to get out of the marital relationship. In fact not only the husband but also the wife may be given freedom to marry and remarry again by committing acts of infidelities constituting grounds for divorce.

In this connection, it is likewise worth citing one of the reasons of the Christian Family Movement (CFM), in strongly opposing the bill. The CFM, a Catholic lay organization evangelizing families and communities as well as promoting and protecting the sanctity and value of marriage, now headed by Eliot and Grace Kam, emphatically declared, among others, that

“The Divorce Bill is also anti-family and anti-children. The children will be the biggest victims of any divorce. They will suffer the most, more than any of the parents. The separation of parents inflict lingering emotional, psychological, mental and detrimental impact on the children that they often carry into their adult and married lives, unless consciously addressed early.

Not even financial support can address or heal the mental psychological and emotional wounds inflicted by separated or divorced parents. It will have tremendous effect on their peace of mind and happiness. In our culture where family takes high value, divorce will create a stigma of a broken family among children.

The worst part is that the children themselves, during their respective marriages, may opt to divorce, as an easy way out, like their parents, at the instance of any marital crisis. Thus, the virus of divorce could be passed by the parents to their children. And the children, to their own children, and so on, destroying our families, as well as our society as a whole.”

On another topic, one of my friends, Tony Vidal requests me to announce that the Gamma Delta Epsilon of the UST Faculty of Civil Law will celebrate their 70th anniversary, tomorrow, Feb. 25?, at the Heritage Hotel.

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