House panel unanimously approves Divorce bill

The House population and family relations committee on Tuesday approved an unnumbered substitute bill reinstituting divorce as an alternative mode for the dissolution of marriage.

This developed after the panel, via a unanimous 12-0 vote, approved the measure.

The said bill provides that a divorce petition will undergo a judicial process where proof of the cause for the divorce is established and that the marriage has completely collapsed without any possibility of reconciliation.

The bill, however, prohibits quickie, notarial, email and other speedy drive-thru divorces. In addition, no decree of absolute divorce will be based upon a stipulation of facts or a confession of judgment.

Further, a cooling-off period of 60 days after the filing of the divorce petition is provided. During the said period, the judge is required to exert earnest efforts to reconcile the parties.

“Spouses, especially wives, will soon have the option of getting out of an irremediably broken marriage and get a new lease on life with the approval by the House Committee on Population and Family Relations of the bill reinstituting absolute divorce in the Philippines,” Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, one of the principal authors of the measure, said in a statement.

“The approval of the substitute bill on absolute divorce for eventual plenary debates assures that the country is now at the threshold of joining the universality of absolute divorce in the community of nations,” Lagman added.

The divorce bill also mandates the public prosecutor to conduct an investigation to assure that there is no collusion between the parties or whether one party coerced the other to file the divorce petition.

The divorce petition, however, will be dismissed at any time during the proceedings if the parties agree to reconcile.

Likewise, the divorce decree can be nullified even after the issuance of an absolute divorce decree provided that the parties decide to reconcile.

As for those who will be found guilty of collusion to secure a divorce decree or of one spouse coercing the other to file for divorce, the bill imposes a five-year imprisonment and a sizable fine. 

State-run Philippine Commission on Women earlier expressed support for the passage of divorce bill, saying the current system is disadvantageous to Filipino women. —KG, GMA Integrated News