divorce in the philippines research paper

Volume 36 - Article 50 | Pages 1515–1548  

Divorce and separation in the philippines: trends and correlates.

By Jeofrey Abalos

This article is part of the Special Collection 21 "Separation, Divorce, Repartnering, and Remarriage around the World"

Background : The Philippines is the only country in the world, aside from the Vatican, where divorce is not legal. Despite the lack of divorce law in the country and the high costs of obtaining an annulment, recent data shows that a growing number of Filipinos dissolve their marital unions, either legally or informally.

Objective : I document the rise of union dissolution cases in the Philippines, and investigate the different factors associated with Filipino women’s experience of union dissolution.

Methods : Data is drawn from the two most recent rounds of the Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), conducted in 2008 and 2013. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression models are used in the analysis.

Results : Results reveal that education, type of first union, and childhood place of residence are significantly associated with being divorced or separated among women in the Philippines. Filipino women with higher levels of education, those who were cohabiting without ever marrying in their first union, and those who were raised in urban settings have higher risks of experiencing union dissolution than their counterparts. Religion and ethnicity are also associated with union breakdown among Filipino women.

Contribution : This paper demonstrates that the rise in union dissolution in the Philippines has not happened in isolation. It has to some extent been influenced by the changing character of union formation in the country, the prevailing legal system, a growing acceptance of divorce, increasing education for women, and increasing urbanization.

Author's Affiliation

• Jeofrey Abalos - National University of Singapore, Singapore EMAIL

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Perception towards the legalization of divorce in the Philippines in selected municipalities in Iloilo

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‘Just Like Medicine’: A New Push for Divorce in a Nation Where It’s Illegal

A campaign in the Philippines that frames divorce as a basic human right is gaining momentum, despite systemic and religious barriers.

By Sui-Lee Wee

Photographs by Ezra Acayan

Reporting from Manila

Nearly 15 years ago, Mary Nepomuceno separated from her husband. She remains in limbo because divorce — and the possibility of a new marriage and a clean slate in life — is forbidden by her country’s laws.

Thousands of people like Ms. Nepomuceno are trapped in long-dead marriages in the Philippines, the only country in the world, other than the Vatican, where divorce remains illegal. They live completely separate lives from their spouses, after splitting up for reasons like abuse and incompatibility. Steep legal fees and mounds of paperwork make annulment practically impossible for many.

Partly because of their growing numbers and plight, attitudes in the country, where nearly 80 percent of the population is Catholic, have changed. Surveys show that half of Filipinos now support divorce. Even the president has signaled openness to the idea, and the Philippines is the closest it has ever been to legalizing divorce.

But the issue is far from settled. The powerful Catholic Church has deemed pro-divorce activism to be “irrational advocacy.” Conservative lawmakers remain steadfast in their opposition.

This has prompted some in the legalization camp to frame divorce as a basic human right, like access to health care or education.

“We’re saying that this is just like medicine,” said Ms. Nepomuceno, 54. “You only take this if you’re sick, but you don’t deprive those sick people of the medicine.”

The approach is a departure from the previous strategy of sharing personal stories in the hope of winning lawmakers’ sympathy. Now, activists are using science and statistics to present the long-term effects that keeping divorce illegal has on millions of abused women.

“We used to cry, we would get angry,” said A.J. Alfafara, a founder of Divorce Pilipinas Coalition, which has more than a half-million members. “It used to be a fight, like how do we get people to listen?”

In recent months, a Senate committee approved a bill on divorce for the first time in more than 30 years. The bill is now awaiting a second reading in the Senate, which lawmakers say could happen next year.

“We are feeling some kind of shifts, even in the Senate, and I hope that they will gather momentum and be strong enough to carry this bill to the finish line,” Senator Risa Hontiveros, the bill’s sponsor, said in an interview.

She added that she had been moved by her meetings with activists.

“For me, one of the most compelling themes that came from them is that this is a second chance — a second chance at life, a second chance at love, a second chance at happiness — and why should we deny people that right?” she said.

Divorce has a complicated history in the Philippines. During the Spanish colonial era, divorce was banned, but legal separation was allowed under narrow conditions. Under American occupation, it was made legal, but only on the grounds of adultery and concubinage. The Japanese, who occupied the Philippines during World War II, expanded the divorce law, allowing more grounds for people to seek divorce.

That changed after the enactment of the country’s Civil Code in 1950. But Muslim citizens, who make up 5 percent of the population, are allowed to divorce, because in 1977, Ferdinand E. Marcos, the president at the time, signed legislation allowing it.

Ms. Alfafara, a Protestant, separated from her husband in 2012. She said she had not seen her son in more than a decade, since he chose at the age of 9 to live with his father. When Ms. Alfafara, 46, who works as a virtual office assistant, wanted to buy a house, she was told she had to get her husband’s signature.

Keeping divorce illegal means that abusive husbands can retain joint custody of their children and are entitled to share in their wives’ assets. Another concern is the mental trauma suffered by millions of women trapped in abusive marriages.

Janet Guevarra, 36, spent $5,200 for her annulment — 15 times what she was making monthly in the Philippines. To save the money, she quit her job in I.T. administration and moved to Singapore to work as an aide in a nursing home. In 2022, a court rejected her petition, which she had filed three years earlier.

The judge ruled that Ms. Guevarra’s testimony that her husband “grabbed her collar, pushed and attempted to punch her during heated arguments is not enough basis to prove her claim of physical or verbal abuse.” The judge added, “Marriage, as an inviolable social institution protected by the state, cannot be dissolved at the whim of the parties.”

Haidee Sanchez, 39, said it pained her each time she had to write her husband’s last name on all official documents. She said her husband, who never provided for her family and was repeatedly unfaithful, tried to choke her when she confronted him over an affair. In 2019, she filed for an annulment, but her motion was denied in March.

The judge ruled that Ms. Sanchez had failed to prove her case “with clear and convincing proof.”

Some supporters of the legislation have advised against using the word “divorce” to describe it, saying the term has become politicized. Alternative language like “legal separation” and “annulment expansion” has been floated.

Ms. Hontiveros recalled that one of her colleagues advised her, “Don’t call it a divorce bill, call it the dissolution of marriage bill.” She followed that suggestion.

“Maybe it just gives those who are ambivalent about it or opposed to it another way to talk about it a little less uncomfortably,” she said.

Senator Pia Cayetano, a veteran lawmaker and an outspoken supporter of divorce, said her colleagues in the Senate “really recognize that there are instances where it’s practically inhumane to make a couple live together.”

“I have heard them say things to that effect, that there’s got to be a solution, and they’re happy to support something,” Senator Cayetano said.

Any bill that is passed by the Senate would also have to be cleared by the House of Representatives before going to the president, who would sign it into law. Unlike his predecessors, President Ferdinand E. Marcos Jr. has signaled that he is open to legalizing divorce, though he cautioned that it “should not be easy.”

Father Jerome Secillano, the executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, told a local radio station last year, “It is sad to know that we have legislators who rather focus on breaking marriages and the family rather than fixing them or strengthening the marital bond.”

A decade ago, when the Philippine Congress passed legislation that gave people access to contraception, the clergy held protests and threatened to excommunicate lawmakers for supporting the bill. This time, said Edcel Lagman, a congressman who has pushed for both issues, church officials have been less vocal in its opposition.

“We’ve shown that we can beat the church, and we can do it again,” he said, flashing a smile.

Sui-Lee Wee is the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, overseeing coverage of 11 countries in the region. More about Sui-Lee Wee

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[ANALYSIS] A lawyer looks at the divorce bill in the Philippines

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Marian Hukom/Rappler

The divorce bill in the Senate

A Senate committee has recently approved a consolidated divorce bill. This may be the closest the Philippines has come to passing a general divorce law since the Family Code that omitted it was enacted in 1988. However, the bill’s passage into law is not assured.

A bill must be approved by both chambers of Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives – for it to become law. It must hurdle three readings on separate days on the floor of each chamber. 

The House of Representatives approved a divorce bill on third reading before the latest election. However, at the same time, the Senate’s equivalent bill languished and died at the committee level, leaving nothing for its minority advocates but to refile it in this term.

Now the Senate bill has hurdled not only its first reading , but has also been endorsed by the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality chaired by Senator Risa Hontiveros.

Thus, it is now pending its second of three readings on the Senate floor. Under Senate rules, it is calendared as a matter for ordinary business, to be included among other bills in the order they were received by the Office of the Secretary of the Senate.

What happens now?

With the Senate adjourning from September 30, 2023, we can expect the divorce bill’s second reading after the legislative session resumes on November 6.

The second reading will occasion impassioned debate on the Senate floor. Its authors will deliver their sponsorship speeches, will be subject to questioning by both their allies and by senators opposing its passage. The latter will make speeches and arguments of their own.

Changes to the bill’s provisions may result from the debates and proposals on the floor at this time. Then the attending senators will vote on the resulting version of the bill. 

It shall be momentous if the Senate divorce bill gains a majority of votes after second reading. There is reason to believe this is within reach. While only six senators signed the committee report endorsing the bill, the committee has 11 members who, under Senate rules, are presumed to have concurred with the report unless they register their dissent. A majority of the quorum may be found to vote this into law.

Contemporary surveys show that most Filipinos are in favor of divorce . The House of Representatives already reflects this view. Perhaps the Senate finally shall as well.

If the Senate bill obtains a majority vote of the quorum, then it will be calendared for third reading on a separate day. Printed copies of the bill’s final version will be distributed to the Senators ahead of this third reading. On that day, only the title of the bill will be read on the floor and the attending senators will vote once more. The greatest hurdles will have been overcome if the Senate divorce bill clears that point.

Assuming the Lower House’s version of the divorce bill will have also passed on third reading – as it has in the past – then that and the Senate version shall be reconciled by a bicameral conference committee. The bicameral report reconciling the two versions will need to be approved by both chambers. The approved version will be known as the enrolled bill. 

Finally, this enrolled bill will be submitted to the President of the Philippines for his approval. The President may sign it into law or veto the bill and send it back to Congress with a veto message. Or, if he does not act upon the bill within 30 days of its receipt, it will lapse into law as if he had signed it.

‘People fall in love, people fall out of love:’ Netizens debate divorce

How would you get a divorce under this law?

The different pending versions of the bill have provisions in common which give us a good idea of how a divorce would be obtained if this law is passed.

In the proposed bills of both the Lower House and the Senate, the procedure for filing a divorce is through a court case. We can expect that a petition for divorce should be filed with the Regional Trial Court of the city or province where one of the spouses resides.

The court process contemplated in the various divorce bills is patterned after those for legal separation or annulment of marriage under our Rules of Court, including a cooling off period – between the time of filing the petition and commencement of trial – before the divorce case can proceed. The legislators included this cooling off pause to prevent hasty decisions that precipitate resorting to divorce.

Under the Senate bill, the grounds for allowing divorce are more expansive than what is provided for annulment or even legal separation cases under the Family Code. 

Unlike annulment or petitions for nullity of marriage, the grounds granting divorce need not have existed from the time of the celebration of the marriage. They can come to exist after. The grounds for granting legal separation under the Family Code are also adopted by the Senate divorce bill as grounds to dissolve the marriage entirely. 

Additional grounds are created by the Senate divorce bill. These include rape by one spouse before or after marriage, prolonged separation in fact between the spouses, and irreconcilable differences. A valid divorce obtained overseas is also included as grounds for divorce in the Philippines. Finally, a religious annulment or dissolution granted by a minister or priest is also grounds for granting divorce under the proposed law. 

A petitioner for divorce would thus file the case with the Family Court and prove through testimony and documentary evidence that any of the grounds are met and divorce should be granted.

The proposed law further provides that a court decision granting divorce is final and executory insofar as capacity to remarry is concerned. This means that the spouses are deemed single and can immediately remarry once a divorce is granted even if one of them appeals the decision with respect to its ruling on the issues of support, child custody, and division of property.

What would a divorce law mean for pending cases of legal separation or nullity of marriage?

In the absence of a divorce law, many spouses who want to end their marriage have had to file cases for annulment or nullity of marriage allowed under the Family Code. Such petitions can go on for years without assurance of being granted because of the frankly subjective nature of psychological incapacity, the most common ground that such cases claim as basis for dissolution of marriage.

The authors of the divorce bills have taken this into consideration. The law will allow court cases for legal separation, annulment, or nullity of marriage pending at the time of its passage to be converted to divorce cases. This will spare parties who have already been going to court for years from having to refile and retry their cases and from having to present evidence anew. This also happens to meet certain opposing senators’ argument that, in lieu of a divorce law, annulments should be made less costly and more accessible. In effect, the passage of the divorce law would indeed make annulment cases more accessible. – Rappler.com

Atty. Francesco C. Britanico is a family and corporate lawyer. He has taught Property Law and other subjects at the Legal Studies program of the Lyceum of the Philippines University. He is the managing lawyer and founder of  FCB Law . 

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