Divorce bill seen to hurdle House panel

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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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February 17, 2018
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MANILA – A bill in the House of Representatives introducing divorce to the country may be approved in the committee level next week, said Albay’s Rep. Edcel Lagman.

Lagman, who chairs the Lower House technical working group on the bills for divorce and dissolution of marriage, said lawmakers have already consolidated four bills pertinent to the grant of absolute divorce.

“It includes the grounds for legal separation, annulment of marriage, nullification of marriage, psychological incapacity, irreconcilable differences, and when one of the spouses has undergone transgender surgery,” said Lagman.

“It is not an affront to the constitutional provision on the sanctity of marriage as a basic social institution because what is subject to divorce proceedings are marriages long dead or vitiated from the very start,” he added.

Lagman also said they were crafting a substitute bill to reduce expenses on the part of the petitioner that, in most cases, is the aggrieved wife, and also making divorce proceedings affordable.

“We have also selected a number of grounds which could be subject to summary judicial proceedings in order to expedite the process,” said Lagman. “If one has already gotten legal separation, the judicial decision will be the basis for the grant of divorce.”

“We are also providing for joint petitions but subject to the investigation of the office of public prosecutor in order to ascertain there is no collusion between the spouses,” he added.

It will be historic if the measure is approved by the committee as it would be the farthest any divorce proposal has come in the legislative mill in this predominantly Catholic country./PN
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