By Junex Doronio
MANILA — Short of openly endorsing divorce in this predominantly Catholic country, Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen of the Supreme Court has lamented that Philippine laws are making it difficult for Filipinos to leave unhappy marriages.
Leonen noted that the Philippines is the only country in the world that has no absolute divorce, saying that divorce laws were prohibited when the country was under Spanish colonization.
The Philippines was colonized by Spain for 333 years before it was sold for a measly $20 million to the United States instead of yielding to the Katipunan guerillas.
Ironically, Spain — which brought the Roman Catholic religion to the Philippines as early as 1521 — now has a no-fault (or blameless) divorce law, which means that “you do not need to state a reason for your divorce. You can also divorce after just three months of marriage, and these rules also apply to same-sex couples.”
“Marriage as the foundation of the family no longer reflects the present realities and sensitives of many Filipino families,” Leonen said in a recent lecture at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law.
“The antiquated form from our colonial past is still codified in our laws and is still being reiterated in jurisprudence 135 years later,” the SC Justice said.
Leonen hammered on: “Perhaps if we truly want justice, we will see how antiquated our laws are. If we truly are for justice, we will feel how we impose a burden that is a vestige of our colonial past, that even our colonizer chose to no longer impose on their people.”
Divorce bills are currently pending in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
In the Senate, the bill was approved at the committee level in September last year while at the House of Representatives, a similar bill was approved by a committee in March 2023 but was later returned to the panel for further discussion.
(el Amigo/MNM)