A proposal introducing divorce in the country may be approved into law before the May 2019 elections or before the 17th Congress ends, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said on Sunday.
“I think before the 17th Congress ends, we can already have own own divorce [law],” he told a radio interview over dzBB.
“It [divorce bill] is easier to enact compared to the controversial reproductive health bill,” he said.
Lagman said the Catholic Church was not completely against the divorce bill.
“We invited them. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines sent a representative for a discussion. And even if they said they are against absolute divorce, they had also admitted that their church [tribunal] recognizes canonical nullification of a marriage,” he said.
“So I think the opposition coming from the Catholic Church and other religious denominations would not be that strong,” he added.
He allayed fears that divorce, if passed, would only lead to more separation of married couples.
“Based on the experience in other countries that have divorce law, spouses do not take advantage of it. In fact, countries in Europe with divorce decree have a low incidence of divorce application or instance of separation,” he said.
Two divorce bills have been transmitted to the House committee on population and family relations chaired by Laguna Rep. Sol Aragones.
Lagman, head of the technical working group studying and consolidating the measures to be approved in the plenary level before the International Women’s Day in March, said divorce is intended to protect women from being victimized in their own marriages.
He maintained the divorce bill was “not for us, men. It is for the women.”
The divorce bill is pro-women, he stressed.
He said the technical working group is working out to make the process of divorce faster and cheaper, and that the group will meet tomorrow to discuss the measure to be approved by the mother committee on Wednesday, he said.
According to Lagman, “there is a six-month cooling-off period after one has filed a petition for absolute divorce. This is so since we still want to the couple the chance to reconcile. But after six months and there is no more chance [for a reconciliation], then we will proceed with the divorce proceedings.”
“However, there will be no cooling-off period if the ground is violence against the woman. There could be a risk that the female spouse could receive more battering,” he told Super Radyo dzBB.
Physical violence is one valid ground to dissolve marriage through divorce, he added.
To protect indigent litigants, he said, they shall be excluded from the payment of filing and court fees.
