‘We are not criminals’: Philippines considers legalizing divorce | Human rights news

Manila, Philippines – Michelle Bulang left her abusive husband six years ago.

But even after everything she went through, Bulang, who lives with her four children in the province of Rizal, on the outskirts of Metro Manila, was unable to divorce him.

The Philippines is the only country, besides the Vatican, where a couple cannot legally end their marriage, even in cases of infidelity or domestic violence.

“Every man or woman who has a relationship, no one plans [to get divorced],” said Bulang, his voice breaking as tears welled up in his eyes. “We get into relationships, we love this person, we decide to be with them.”

But without a costly and difficult annulment process, which she cannot afford, Bulang has no way of ending the union. “I just want to feel happiness,” she said. “What do I do?”

Now, a new bill could change everything in this deeply Catholic country. The Absolute Divorce Law was approved in the Chamber of Deputies in May and, if it is approved in the Senate, divorce will become legal.

The bill has gained supporters in the highest body of Congress, and although its prospects remain uncertain, supporters are more optimistic than ever about its passage.

“It’s never gone this far,” said AJ Alfafara, executive organizer of the PILIPINAS Divorce Coalition. “This time, I feel like maybe we have a chance.”

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr expressed openness to legalizing divorce when he took office in 2022 and that although some cases were necessary, the process was not expected to be easy.

In the general population, 50 percent of Filipino adults support the legalization of divorce and 31 percent oppose it, according to a survey conducted by research institution Social Weather Stations in March.

Filipinos can file for legal separation, which allows spouses to live separately but does not legally end the marriage. They can also seek an annulment, which is expensive and requires clear evidence that the marriage is invalid.

But opposition to divorce is linked to a strong and politically influential conservative Catholic lobby, including the Iglesia ni Cristo, the country’s largest church, which prohibits divorce among its parishioners.

“Churches have a lot of influence over their flock,” Alfafara said. “When the boss says this is what we vote for… if you are Iglesia ni Cristo, you vote for them.”

Barriers to separation

Bulang said she got married at age 26, after a difficult childhood where her parents fought and sometimes abused her.

“Nobody told me what love is. Nobody guided me,” she said. “When I was a kid, I thought marriage was like a fairy tale.”

Bulang remembers falling in love with her future husband without knowing much about him and quickly agreeing to get married.

“I thought it was him,” she said.

But he drank frequently and hit her when they fought, she said. When she was angry, he refused to give them money to buy food. The children, now 18, 12, 11 and seven, learned to wait for the anger to pass.

“They started thinking, OK, maybe fights are a normal thing,” Bulang said. “That was the time when [I knew] This is a life I don’t like for my children.”

Bulang sought legal separation, but in the process discovered that her husband had already married another woman, meaning their marriage was never legal.

But she is stuck because she cannot afford to go to court to prove that the marriage contract was invalid.

It generally costs up to $4,000 to hire an attorney to file annulment petitions, plus the attorney’s appearance fee of about $100 per hearing date, said Janine Aranas, senior associate attorney at the law firm De Leon Arevalo Gonzales, with headquarters in Quezon City.

In addition to the costs, the courts in the Philippines are very technical and will reject a petition to annul the marriage if any documentation is missing.

Aranas said that in Bulang’s case, she would have to provide her original marriage contract and her husband’s previous contract, without which the court would likely deny the petition. Bulang no longer maintains contact with her husband and would not be able to guarantee the contract.

“The burden of proof is on you and it is extremely high,” she said.

Some Filipinos take extreme measures to escape their marriages, even moving to other countries with the main aim of asking for divorce in foreign courts, then hoping that the process will be recognized in the Philippines.

Aranas said he worked with a client whose husband raped her and threatened her with an itak, a long, sharp knife used to slaughter animals when they fought. Still, she was unable to annul that woman’s marriage and a legal separation would not protect her from her husband.

“Imagine being in that certain relationship and after everything, you are still married to that person. They still have the right to visit their child,” Aranas said. “The trauma doesn’t end.”

About 1.6 million Filipinos were listed as annulled, separated or divorced according to the 2020 census of the Philippine Statistics Authority. In addition to overseas divorces, limited divorces are permitted among Filipino Muslims under Islamic law.

Obstacles

Still, there is strong opposition to divorce in the mostly Catholic country, where many have deep-seated beliefs that marriage is sacred and should happen only once.

Many high-profile senators have voiced their opposition to the divorce law and some, such as Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, support expanding access to expensive annulment procedures.

“Instead of pushing for an absolute divorce law…perhaps a bill with a well-defined basis for annulling a marriage would be a very welcome alternative,” Estrada said in May.

More than 40 groups came together last month to form the Super Coalition Against Divorce, which aims to “work together to stop anti-family and anti-life laws from being passed in Congress,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said in a Facebook. publish.

“Divorce tears families apart on a colossal scale,” said Tim Laws, an activist with the Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines, Inc.

Laws, who has been married to a Filipina for more than 25 years, fears that hundreds of thousands of Filipinos could rush to the courts seeking divorce if the bill passes in its current state.

Instead, ALFI members support making separation free or low-cost, at least in cases of abusive marriages.

Laws supports legal separation over divorce because it says those who find another partner and remarry tend to have higher divorce rates. “How do they benefit,” he asked.

“[Marriage] it’s a lifetime commitment,” Laws said. “Everywhere in the world except the Philippines, marriage, as it has been generally understood throughout history, has been abolished.”

The current Congress will come to an end in May 2025, and many sitting senators may be hesitant to support a divorce bill as they face re-election, Alfafara warned.

Last week, Marcos presented five priority measures that his government wants to see approved in Congress before his term expires. Legalizing divorce was not one of them.

Still, Alfafara remains optimistic that a divorce bill will pass the Senate. The PILIPINAS Divorce Coalition has been in contact with members of Congress to a degree that has never happened before, she said.

“This is civil policy,” Alfafara said. “It’s not theological.”

Bulang doesn’t know if she will try to get married again if she manages to divorce her husband. “I want to feel the moment of freedom,” she said. “We are not criminals. We are all victims here.”