“The passage of a divorce bill is practically unnecessary for 2 reasons. First, it does not address issues of high cost of litigation and slow-grinding disposition of cases, which are the real problems encountered by those seeking relief from troubled marriages, particularly poor petitioners. Secondly and more importantly, it is a clear defiance to God and to the Constitution because it will terribly degrade the sacrosanctness of marriage as an inviolable institution.”
This is the statement of CIBAC Party-List Representative Bro. Eddie Villanueva, House Deputy Speaker for Good Governance and Moral Uprightness, during the committee hearing by the House of Representatives on divorce bills Wednesday.
“Why pass the divorce bill when it will not really solve the real issues of those wishing to get out of unfortunate wedlock – the high costs of professional fees and the slow disposition cases? The divorce bills filed in Congress simply enumerate and consolidate remedies for broken marriages already existing in our current laws. That is why the divorce bill is unnecessary. Worse, it just makes marriage ‘cheap’ because the grounds it qualifies as bases for divorce are shallow and not in favor of the strengthening the families – which is what the Constitution and various jurisprudence of the court decree,” adds the Deputy Speaker CIBAC solon.
The CIBAC lawmaker says that the concerned agencies, for instance, can make programs that can provide financial or technical assistance to poor petitioners so they don’t have to bear the entire expenses of litigation. Or Congress can amend the Family Code to insert provisions to make the annulment process more affordable and expeditious.
“What we really need is to improve the annulment process and make it pro-poor in terms of cost and time. It maynecessitate an executive action or a legislative one, but certainly not a divorce bill,” exclaims Deputy Speaker Villanueva.
“On the other hand, the preventive side, we need to strengthen our pre-marriage counselling requirements to all couples so that they’ll really have a thorough reconsideration of their decision before they commit to entering the wedlock. Local government units must take due diligence in ensuring that couples are really informed and prepared before they plunge into this lifetime commitment,” ends the CIBAC lawmaker.
