Answer:
Divorce in the Philippines has been an issue for several years. in fact, the Philippines is the only country in the world besides the Vatican that does not allow divorce, mostly due to religion (de Leon, 2014). Little do people know that GABRIELA Women’s Party has already proposed House Bill No. 1799 or the Divorce Bill. If signed, this bill would allow individuals to be free of their unhappy and most of the time abusive marriages and also gives guidelines for settling financial concerns as well as the custody of the children, if any. But even though people should have the right to leave a bad marriage, divorce should not be legalized in the Philippines.
First and foremost, what exactly is divorce and why do couples do it? Oxford Dictionaries (2015) defines divorce as “the legal dissolution of marriage by a court or other competent body”. In this, many factors can be blamed like a lack of commitment and equality in the relationship, infidelity, marrying too young, and abuse (Utah State University, 2015). But what it all really boils down to is an unhappy marriage and that is what divorce should be able to fix, if ever it would be allowed. If a person is stuck in a sad, or worse, abusive marriage, then he/she should have the right to escape it. Based on the National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office, one out of five women aged 15-49 has experienced physical violence and 14.4 percent of married women have experienced physical abuse from their husbands. Statistics have also shown that wife battery ranked highest among cases of violence against women at 72 percent in 2009, affecting more than 6,000 women (Umil, 2011). On the other hand, a sad marriage is just as bad as an abusive one. According to the Philippine’s Solicitor General’s office, there were 9,117 petitions for annulment filed in 2010, 61 percent of which were filed by women. The pros of divorce definitely have good points, but the Philippine society, with its traditional mindset, is not quite ready for it.
The biggest factor as to why the Philippines should reject divorce is religion. Roughly 83 percent of Filipinos are Roman Catholics (de Leon, 2014). This means that the church’s opinion matters a lot to the people, and the church firmly says no. Firstly, marriage is one of the Seven Sacraments that all Catholics celebrate and hold dear.
