House Bill 9349, which proposes the passage of an Absolute Divorce Law, has yet to be transmitted to the Senate two weeks after it was passed on third and final reading by the lower chamber.

A letter obtained by the Daily Tribune on Sunday showed the transmittal letter for the measure’s approved copy has yet to be signed by House Secretary Reginald Velasco.

The House official attended the 9th Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity, which wrapped up on Friday. He then met his counterpart officials from South Korea’s National Assembly.

Based on the letter to Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, the bill’s principal author, Velasco’s office would transmit the copy of the measure upon the secretary general’s return so that “he can personally sign the transmittal letter.”

Velasco told DAILY TRIBUNE that he would fly back to the Philippines on 10 June.

The proposed Absolute Divorce Act narrowly hurdled the divided House of Representatives with 131 votes in favor, 109 against and 20 abstentions, during the last session of Congress last 22 May before the sine die adjournment.

The initial vote, however, stated that the bill only garnered 126 affirmative votes. On 23 May, Velasco clarified that the issue of the number of votes was “purely administrative error” and that 131-109-20 was the “actual result.”

Velasco was said to have deferred the measure’s transmittal to the Senate so that he could report the amended votes to the plenary floor.

In an interview on Sunday, House Deputy Majority Leader Janette Garin denied the measure was intentionally put on hold by the House.

“It just so happened that Congress was on break,” she said. “There were those who changed their minds along the way and approached [the] Secretary general. So, there were changes,” the Iloilo lawmaker concluded.

Lagman earlier petitioned the Office of the Secretary General for the immediate forwarding of the divorce bill in the Senate, saying “there is no need to wait” as the issue of affirmative votes “will not alter the ultimate result of the voting.”

“The correction can be made when the House opens its Third Regular Session on 22 July 2024, without prejudice to the mandate of the House for the Secretary-General to transmit immediately to the Senate the engrossed copy of the approved absolute divorce bill,” said Lagman in a letter to Velasco.

If passed into law, the proposed Absolute Divorce Act would allow spouses to secure an absolute divorce for the dissolution of an irreparably broken or dysfunctional marriage under specific grounds and judicial processes while hopefully sparing children from pain and stress. It would also grant former spouses to remarry.

In 2018, during the 17th Congress, the House also passed an absolute divorce bill, but its counterpart in the Senate languished at the committee level.

In September last year, a panel in the Senate approved an absolute divorce bill but the same has yet to be tackled in the plenary.