Absolute Divorce Act

HB 9349 or the Absolute Divorce Act is a historic mistake of the present Congress.

The bill trivializes the marriage vow “till death do us part” as it incentivizes and facilitates the dissolution of the conjugal partnership and makes it easy as pie for a couple to walk away from each other.

Promiscuity and other lascivious behaviors will become a fad as Filipinos love to copy the Hollywood lifestyles of the divorced rich and famous actors.

It will be traumatic for children to be raised by different sets of parents who will serially divorce their partners in their search for their fantasized perfect romance.

Traditional family values imparted to young children such as respect, loyalty, perseverance, forgiveness, and endurance to pain are at risk of being lost as the parental role becomes a confusing revolving door experience with the frequent changing of parents.

The issue of absolute divorce, contrary to popular opinion, is not just unacceptable on moral grounds. The objection of major religious groups, understandably, is largely based on moral principles, but psychologists and other humanists also frown on absolute divorce based on science, ethics, humanistic philosophy, and normal ordinary human experience.

Human nature and human nurture are indelible parts of evolution and marital unions. Undeniably, the family is the basic foundation of a nation for growth, stability and the continuity of society. It is, thus, the duty of government to reinforce and not weaken this bedrock and make it crumble with a quick and destructive law of absolute divorce.

Every marriage has different and distinct problems which may take unique approaches to save the conjugal partnership. A divorce law is a one-size-fits-all solution that couples may wrongly, conveniently and regretfully seek as shelter to end the conjugal union because of imagined or real marital conflicts that are resolvable by the couples themselves or with help from family, friends, the religious community and professionals.

The move to legalize absolute divorce constitutes a classic case of the so-called “slippery slope” which will invariably lead us down the path of further personal, familial, and societal problems that will come in the train of such a move.

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of an absolute divorce law would be the legal profession which has a reported nine divorce lawyers per the latest statistics. But there are two constraints: a great number of married couples live below the poverty line and would not be able to afford divorce lawyers and their lack of properties to divide.

The foregoing narrative illustrates very clearly the ineluctable consequences down that proverbial slope. And they are not necessarily based on “holier-than-thou” principles associated with people who take the moral high ground. They are plain human concerns that ought to be part of any human person’s valid exercise of what philosophers call “prudential judgment.”

When human life was created and marriage became an institution, there was no universal guarantee that it would be trouble-free and filled with endless joy. Conflicts and misunderstandings will always be a challenging presence in any human interaction, especially in a conjugal relationship.

Hopefully, the legislators in the upper chamber will be more judicious and believe that a solid, long-lasting and happy marriage is worth saving, no matter how seductive it is for a spouse who is adulterously inclined to seek divorce as an easy way out.

Being the only country in the world, together with the Vatican, without an absolute divorce law is not shameful nor medieval but is a source of pride and a bragging right for having blessed marital unions protected by Heaven, our Constitution and the Family Code.