Philippines House of Reps pass divorce bill, moves to Senate

Philippines moved closer Tuesday to allowing divorce when the House of Representatives approved a bill which, if signed into law, would mean the country is no longer the only nation in the world where the practice is banned.

Voting 134-57, with two abstentions, the House voted on Monday to approve the law instituting “absolute divorce of marriage in the Philippines.”

“The measure refers to absolute divorce as ‘the separation between married couples that is total and final, where the husband and wife return to their status of being single with the right to contract marriage again’,” a House statement said.

The Senate would also need to approve the bill before it came before President Rodrigo Duterte, who would need to decide whether to sign it or not.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Duterte was against divorce, but did not say if he would use his veto power should a law be passed by both the House and the Senate.

Duterte earlier said he would let Congress handle the divorce issue. He could let the measure pass into law simply by not using his veto power.

Under the approved bill, married couples may file for divorce for such reasons as abuse, infidelity and irreconcilable differences. Spouses who have been separated for at least five years are also allowed to file for divorce.

The Philippines currently only allows legal separation and annulment, but both procedures take a long time, cost a lot of money and often become very acrimonious for couples.

The Catholic Church lamented the approval of the divorce bill in the House, while a senior bishop expressed hope that the Senate would be able to “discern what is good for the country.”

“We pray that they [legislators] will be enlightened,” Archbishop Jose Palma told reporters Tuesday. “I’m sure they won’t be happy if future generations will blame them for a legacy that does not bring about the good of the community, but rather its destruction.”

There is no counterpart bill in the Senate, which will instead deliberate the House version. Some of the country’s 23 senators have expressed opposition to divorce, and would be more inclined to ease the process for annulment.

For decades, the Catholic Church has strongly opposed any efforts to legalize divorce in the Philippines, where more than 80 per cent of the population are Roman Catholics.