The House of Representatives has approved the absolute divorce bill on second reading.
House Bill 9349, as amended, was approved through a voice vote during plenary session on Wednesday.
The measure aims to "reinstitute absolute divorce as an alternative mode for the dissolution of an irreparably broken or dysfunctional marriage under limited grounds and well-defined judicial procedures," the bill's fact sheet read.
Grounds for absolute divorce include physical violence or "grossly abusive conduct," a final prison sentence of over six years; drug addiction, habitual alcoholism, chronic gambling, bigamous marriage; and marital infidelity.
Also grounds for absolute divorce were moral pressure to change religious or political affiliation; attempt to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, of the petitioner's child to engage in prostitution and homosexuality.
Under the bill, either spouse is allowed to seek absolute divorce if they have been legally separated for over two years.
Grounds for annulment under Article 45 of the Family Code, as modified in the bill, were also grounds for absolute divorce.
Separation in fact for at least five years with "highly improbable" reconciliation; psychological incapacity, whether it "existed at the time of the marriage or supervenes after the marriage;" and irreconcilable differences were also grounds for absolute divorce.
The bill included psychological and emotional violence, sexual violence, or economic abuse as grounds for absolute divorce.
"When one of the spouses undergoes a sex reassignment surgery or transitions from one sex to another, the other spouse is entitled to petition for absolute divorce with the transgender or transsexual as respondent, or vice versa," it said.
The bill also recognizes a valid foreign divorce, which "must be authenticated by the Philippine Consul in or proximate to the foreign country where it was secured, and subsequently registered with the proper Civil Registry Office in the Philippines" or the Office of the Philippine Consul where the Filipino lives.
Marriages nullified or dissolved by the Roman Catholic Church "or any other recognized religious sect" "shall be granted civil recognition as if a divorce had been granted in accordance with the provisions of this Act," without undergoing judicial process if authenticated by the proper religious authorities, and registered with the proper civil registry office.
Under the bill, a petition for absolute divorce can be filed in court by a spouse or jointly by the spouses within 10 years "from the occurrence or discovery of the cause for divorce or from the effectivity of the Absolute Divorce Act, whichever comes later."
Public prosecutors must investigate to determine whether the spouses are colluding or whether either coerced the other to file the petition.
Petitioners who are overseas Filipinos will be given priority by the court.
The bill allows summary judicial proceedings in cases of separation in fact for at least five years; bigamous marriage; legal separation for at least two years; the spouse being sentenced to imprisonment for at least six years; or sex reassignment surgery or transition into another sex.
A family court will try its best to reunite and reconcile the concerned spouses during a 60-day cooling-off period after the filing of the petition. Once the cooling-off period has expired without the parties having reconciled, the court will try to appeal and make a decision within one year.
The cooling-off period will not apply in cases involving violence against women and their children or attempt against the life of the spouse or a common child or the petitioner's child.
The bill defines absolute divorce as "the judicial dissolution of a marriage or the termination of the bond of matrimony where the spouses return to their status of being single with the right to contract marriage again."
When he sponsored the bill at the plenary, Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman had said that "divorce stories can also be love stories."
In his sponsorship speech, Lagman said absolute divorce was not for everybody.
"The overwhelming majority of Filipino marriages are happy, enduring and loving. They do not need the divorce law," he said.
An absolute divorce law, he said, "is urgently necessary in marriages which have totally collapsed and are beyond repair, where the majority of the victims are the wives who have been subjected to cruelty, violence, infidelity and abandonment."
Lagman said that it was time the country had an absolute divorce law.
Gabriela Women's Party Rep. Arlene Brosas, who also sponsored the bill, said it "will not necessarily lead to termination of marriages and breakups. It is merely offering another option to spouses who may or may not resort to it. It retains the existing remedies of legal separation, declaration of nullity of the marriage, and annulment and only adds divorce as one more remedy."
"While divorce under this proposed measure severs the bond of marriage, divorce as a remedy need not be for the purpose of remarriage; it may be resorted to by individuals to achieve peace of mind and facilitate their pursuit of full human development," Brosas said.
Source: Business World
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