Divorce Bill Essay

Underpinning this proposal is a commitment to the policy of the State to protect and strengthen uniting and the family as basic social institutions, to nurse the dignity of every hu human race person, to guarantee full respect for human rights, and to ensure the fundamental comparability before the law of women and men. In the Filipino culture, sexual union is regarded as a sacred union, and the family founded on marriage is considered as a fount of love, protection and c be. Filipino society gener on the wholey frowns upon and discourages marital break-ups and so provides pagan and heavy safeguards to perserve marital relations.Cultural prescriptions and ghostlike norms keep many couples to add upher despite the dislocation of the marriage. al single the heathenish prescriptions for women and men resist. Women atomic number 18 traditionally regarded as primarily responsible for making the marriage blend in and atomic number 18 expected to sacrifice everything to pres erve the marriage and the solidarity of the family. While absolute fidelity is demanded of wives, men are granted sexual license to nourish affairs outside marriage. Yet when the marriage fails, the woman is charge for its failure.Reality tells us that there are many failed, unhappy marriages across all Filipino classes. some couples especially from the marginalized sectors, who have no access to the courts, simply end up separating without the benefit of legal processes. The cut deem of orisons that have been filed since 1988 for the declaration of the nullity of the marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code (commonly know as annulment) shows that there are just too many couples who are desperate to get out of failed marriages.Even when couples start out well in their marriage, political, economicalal and social realities take their bell on their relationship. Some are non prepared to handle the intricacies of the married life. For a large number of women, the inequalit ies and madness in marriage negate its ideals as the embodiment of love, care and safety and erode the bases upon which a marriage is founded. The marital relations facilitate the commission of violence and perpetuate their oppression. Official figures in 2009 showed that 19 women were victims of marital violence everyday.Among the different forms of violence and abuse against women committed in 2009, wife battery ranked highest at 6,783 or 72% according to the Philippine National Police (PNP). The Department of Social offbeat and Development (DSWD) likewise recorded marital violence as highest among different forms of violence against owmen at 1,933. antecedent reports of the PNP about three of ten perpetrators of violence against women were husbands of the victims. Husbands accounted for 28 percent of the violence against women crimes.Given these realities, couples must have the option to avail of remedies that willing pave the way for the attainment of their full human devel opment and self-realisation and the protection of their human rights. Existing laws are not enough to guarantee and protect these rights. To quote the Womens Legal Bureau, Inc. , a legal resource NGO for women The present laws relating to separation of couples and termination of marriage are inadequate to respond to the myriad causes of failed marriages. Particularly, the remedies of declaration of nullity and annulment do not cover the problems that materialise during the existence of marriage.Legal separation, on the other hand, while covering problems during marriage, does not retch an end to marriage. though both divorce and a declaration of nullity of a marriage al low-pitched the spouses to remarry, the two remedies differ in purpose and basis. A declaration of nullity presupposes that the marriage is sound from the beginning and the court declares its non-existence beyond the ground specified in the law, declaration of nullity is not possible. In annulment, the marriag e of the parties is declared defective from the beginning, albeit it is considered valid until annulled.The defect can be used to nullify the marriage within a specified distributor point but the alike may be ignored and the marriage becomes perfectly valid after the reverse of that period, or the defect may be cured by dint of some act. The defect relates to the time of the exultation of the marriage and has nothing to do with circumstances occurring after the marriage is celebrated. In annulment, the marriage is legally cancelled, and the man and woman are restored to their single status. Since portentous 3, 1988, couples have been given a way out of failed marriages through and through Article 36 of the Family CodeThe remedy provides under Article 36 is declaration of nullity of the marriage.The bind voids a marriage where one party is psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essentials of marital obligations. Consistent with the concept of void marriages (where t he remedy is declaration of nullity), the law requires that the incapacity must have existed at the time of the exultation of the marriage In practice, Article 36 has become a form of divorce, as valid marriages are declared void every day in the guise of psychological incapacity. The innumerable Article 36 cases brought to trial courts is an indication of the e extremeicity of Article 36 to accommodate the needs of many couples desiring to terminate their marriages. It is certainty that divorce is needed in the Philippines. Article 36 provides a remedy only for spouses who can enkindle psychological incapacity. The concept certainly cannot accommodate all cases where divorce would be necessary. What we need is a divorce law that defines clearly and unequivocally the grounds and terms for terminating a marriage.That law will put an end to the creative efforts played daily in courtrooms across the country to accommodate a immense range of cases in order to prove psychological inca pacity. (Womens Legal Bureau, Inc. , The Relevance of Divorce in the Philippines, 1998) Thus, the step attempts to bring out divorce as another option for couples in failed and irreparable marriages. The circular was crafted in consultation with women lawyers and inspired by the studies and inputs of various womens groups and the experiences of spouses gathered by GABRIELA from its various chapters nationwide.The bill seeks to introduce divorce in Philippine law with a strong sense of confidence that it will be used responsibly by Filipino couples. This confidence stems from the experiences of Filipino families that show that separation is usually the last resort of many Filipino couples whose marriage has failed. Cases of battered women also support this. Battered women invariably seek separation only after many years of tring to make the marriage work. Separation only becomes tyrannical for them when they realize that it is necessary for their and their childrens survival.Di vorce could actually provide protection to battered women and their children from further violence and abuse. With the predominance of the Catholic faith in the Philippines, the fear that divorce will erode personal value on marriage appears unfounded. The experience of Italy, where the Vatican is located, and Spain, two predominantly Catholic countries which practice divorce, supports this. Those countries have a low rate of divorce. Italy registers a 7% rate while Spain registers 15%.The figures reflect the strong influence of religious beliefs and culture on individuals in deciding to terminate marital relations. Historically, divorce had been part of our legal system. In the beginning of the 16th century, before the Spanish colonial rule, absolute divorce was widely practiced among genetic tribes such as the Tagbanwas of Palawan, the Gadangs of Nueva Vizcaya, the Sagadans and Igorots of the Cordilleras, and the Manobos, Blaans and Moslems of the Visayas and Mindanao islands.Div orce was also available during the American period, starting from 1917 (under Act nary(prenominal) 710 enacted by the Philippine Legislature), and during the Japanese occupation (under Executive Order No. 141) and after, until 1950. It was only on August 30, 1950, when the New Civil Code took effect, that divorce was disallowed under Philippine law. Only legal separation was available. The same rule was adopted by the Family Code of 1988, which replaced the provisions of the New Civil Code on marriage and the family, although the Family Code introduced the concept of psychological incapacity as a basis for declaring the marriage void.In credit of the history of divorce in the Philippines, the farmers of the 1987 Philippine Constitution left the wisdom of legalizing divorce to the Congress. Thus, the 1987 Constitution does not prohibit the legalization of divorce. This bill is respectful of and sensitive to differing religious beliefs in the Philippines. It recognizes that the plura lity of religious beliefs and cultural sensibilities in the Philippines demand that different remedies for failed marriages should be made available.For this reason, the bill retains the existing remedies of legal separation, declaring of nullity of the marriage and annulment and only adds divorce as one more remedy. Couples may choose from these remedies depending on their situation, religious beliefs, cultural sensibilities, needs and emotional state. While divorce under this proposed measure severs the bonds of marriage, divorce as a remedy need not be fo the purpose of re-marriage it may be resorted to by individuals to touch peace of mind and facilitate their pursuit of full human development.This bill also seeks to make Philippine law consistent in the way it treats religious beliefs with respect to termination of marriage. Philippine law through the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines (Presidential Decree No. 1083 1977) allows divorce among Filipino Muslims, in de ference to the Islamic faith which recognizes divorce. Non-Muslim Filipinos should have the same option under Philippine law, in accordance with their religious beliefs. The bill proposes five grounds for divorce.All the five grounds are premised on the irreparable breakdown of the marriage and the total non-performance of marital obligations. Thus, the bill provides that a petition for divorce may be filed when the petitioner has been free de facto (in fact) from his or her spouse for at least(prenominal) five years at the time of the filing of the petition and reconciliation is highly improbable, or when the petitioner has been legally separated from his or her spouse for at least two years at the time of the filing of the petition and reconciliation is highly improbable.Not all circumstances and situations that cause the total breakdown of a marriage could be defined in this proposed measure. Thus, the bill also provides that divorce may be granted when the spouses suffer from irreconcilable differences that have caused the irreparable breakdown of the marriage. Spouses living in a state of irreparable marital conflict or discord should be given the opportunity to present their marital contrarieties in court and have those differences adjudged as constituting a square ground to put an end to the marriage.Another ground for divorce included in the bill is when one or both spouses are psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations. This provision will consequently repeal Article 36 of the Family Code. The bill seeks to include psychological incapacity in the grounds for divorce in the belief that the concept is consistent with the termination of marital ties rather than with a void marriage. This bill seeks to eliminate condonation of the act and consent to the act as grounds for denying a petition for legal separation and, by extension, a petition for divorce.Many spouses especially women ignore the offense because of the social and economic conditions they are in. Many women in the marginalized sectors tend to condone the offense because they are economically dependent on their spouses or because of the stigma attached to failed marriages. Some women who are perceived to be condoning the acts of their husbands actually suffer from the calendar method of spousal abuse such that they have become so disempowered to address their situation.