Wooing lone district’s votes: Lapu Congress bet to push divorce bill

CEBU, Philippines - Lapu-Lapu City congressional aspirant Junex Doronio would push for the passage of a divorce bill if he gets elected into the 17th Congress next year.

“Let us not be hypocrite. Divorce is not alien to Filipino culture because our indigenous peoples and our Muslim brothers and sisters have divorce,” he said in press statement.

Doronio, a mediaman, said that it is time to pass the bill “to give justice to the long-suffering wives who have been abused or abandoned by their husbands for years without any support.”

He said the bill would also be a big relief to some husbands who silently endure the shame of having unfaithful wives.

Doronio filed last Friday his certificate of candidacy for congressman of the lone district of Lapu-Lapu City under the Philippine Green Republican Party, a Commission on Elections-accredited national political party.

Citing data from the Office of the Solicitor General, he said an average of 28 couples each day wanted their marriages annulled or nullified in 2012, or 10,528 annulment cases lodged before the said office.

Doronio also said that a Social Weather Station survey in December 2014 showed that 60 percent of Filipinos are in favor of granting divorce to married couples who are legally separated and cannot reconcile anymore.

He also said that records from the Regional Trial Court Civil Division in 2013 showed that there were 346 annulment and marriage nullity cases filed in Cebu.

He said the filing of annulment right now is expensive and discriminatory against the poor since it costs not less than P100,000 and it usually takes a number of years before an annulment case is decided upon.

“There is also no assurance that annulment can be granted by the court,” he said.  (FREEMAN)