Sen. Cayetano files divorce bill
Credit to Author: JAVIER J. ISMAEL| Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2019 23:31:09 +0000
SEN. Pilar Juliana “Pia” Cayetano has introduced a measure instituting absolute divorce and dissolution of marriage in the Philippines.
In filing Senate Bill 288, Cayetano said that while Executive Order 209 or the Family Code of the Philippines provided for grounds for the termination of marriage, this process of annulment is extremely adversarial in nature, unnecessarily tedious, and very expensive.
“This does not only escalate the conflict between the spouses but also affect the well-being of their common children. Consequently, most couples despite their irreconcilable differences are forced to remain in their unhappy, difficult, or even dysfunctional marriages,” Cayetano said.
This bill, which passed on third reading at the House of Representatives but failed to pass in the Senate during the 17th Congress, intends to ease the access to legal processes to terminate a marriage while at the same time preserves the chance for a post-marriage scenario that allows a peaceful and productive co-existence between the former spouses which is beneficial to the family.
Under the bill, it is the option of concerned spouses to file for absolute divorce or seek legal separation, annulment of marriage or nullification of marriage under the pertinent provisions of the Family Code of the Philippines.
The grounds for divorce are the following:
(1)Physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner;
(2)Physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to change religious or political affiliation;
(3)Attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance in such corruption or inducement;
(4)Final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than six years, even if pardoned;
(5)Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism or chronic gambling of the respondent;
(6)Homosexuality of any of the spouses;
(7)Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or abroad;
(8)Marital infidelity or perversion or having a child with another person other than one’s spouse during the marriage, except when upon the mutual agreement of the spouses, a child is born to them by in vitroor a similar procedure or when the wife bears a child after being a victim of rape;
(9)Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner, a common child or a child of the petitioner; and
(10)Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year.