Poll surveys are not and should never be used as means to determine what is right or wrong, what is true or false, what is legal or illegal, or, most importantly, to find out the most qualified persons who should be elected to public office. If we persist in this practice, it will eventually result in mob rule instead of the rule of law. While the methods of the surveys may really be scientific enough to determine the pulse of the people, the danger of manipulation is still clear and present. Besides, there are certain issues that are resolvable only by using certain objective standards rather than by purely subjective and misguided public opinions.
Unfortunately, it looks like this administration has been exploiting public opinion polls as means even in determining what is good or evil. And this is very obvious in the recent poll survey on divorce: on whether we should have divorce in this country. While Malacanang is distancing itself from said survey, all signs indicate its imprint on the project because of the similarity in the style it used here and in pushing for the passage of the RH bill.
In this case, it is quite obvious that the respondents to the survey may not have a correct and accurate understanding of the question propounded, especially on the word “divorce” itself. A lot of people may not realize that we already have a “divorce” in this country technically known as “relative divorce”, or the separation of the husband and wife from bed and board (a mensa et toro). This is provided for in Article 55 of the Family Code (FC). It is the only legitimate way to get out of a soured relationship without violating the sanctity of the marriage bond protected by our Constitution. It affords the aggrieved spouse enough remedies should his or her marriage becomes unbearable.
The respondents to the opinion survey may not have been informed about this legal form of divorce or they may have been actually referring to it when they replied that they are in favor of divorce. The worse part here is that they may not be aware of the other kind of divorce which the proponents who commissioned the survey are actually referring to, which is the divorce legalized especially in western countries where broken homes, disintegrating families, pre-marital sex and teen-age pregnancies, violence and hooliganism abound. This “divorce” is technically known as “absolute divorce.”
Absolute divorce actually refers to and affects marriages which have no vice or defect at the time of celebration but are nevertheless dissolved for causes arising after their celebration. Here there is a perfectly valid marriage which the law already considers as an inviolable social institution. So when it is dissolved under the proposed divorce law, this accepted public policy enshrined in our Constitution and family law will be infringed. In this kind of divorce the spouses are entitled not only to live separately but to remarry, so the inviolability of marriage as a social institution is desecrated.
To be sure, there are really broken marriages beyond repair. And our law (FC) already recognizes it. This is the marriage contracted by any party who at the time of the celebration was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations. In fact the Supreme Court has already made several rulings in this connection. But in this case, no marriage bond has been severed as no marriage existed at all from the very start (Art 36, FC). Hence the constitutional provision protecting the inviolability of marriage (Article XV, Section 2) is not violated.
Filipinos are better known to be faithful and true to their commitments (walang iwanan); more so with respect to their marriage vows. But if divorce is legalized here, this admirable trait will be disregarded and the commitment to the marriage vows will become so fragile because they will enter into a marital relationship secure in the thought that they can easily get out of it. It countenances “love at first sight” or a situation where a person can marry the first woman or man he/she meets and takes fancy on, believing that anyway he/she can later on divorce his/her partner and jump into another marital relationship with the next woman or man he/she meets and falls in love with. Love is no longer a decision but a mere feeling or emotion. The bill is actually abetting a “marry go round.”
It is erroneous to contend that by recognizing divorce, we will be doing a great favor to the innocent spouse, especially the battered wife as it will enable her to get out of an unbearable marital relationship. On the contrary, it will be doing a greater favor to the guilty spouse particularly the philandering and violent husband because divorce enables him to get out of the marital relationship by battering his wife and/or committing acts that constitute grounds for divorce and then remarry again and still continue to commit those acts every time he wants to get out of the marital relationship he has repeatedly entered into. In fact, it works both ways, it can also be the wife who is the guilty spouse committing infidelities and similar acts constituting grounds for divorce and rewarded with freedom to remarry again and again.
Of course we are one of the few countries at present without any divorce law. But that is not something to be ashamed of. On the contrary it is something to be proud of. We should be proud to be known and distinguished as: the only country which continue to preserve and even strengthen marriage and family ties under any circumstances, like being separated for sometime because of need to work abroad; the only country where family members continue to respect and take care of their elders especially the sick and the infirm, instead of dumping them in nursing homes or homes for the aged; the only country where parents and siblings toil and sacrifice for the sake of the other members of the family; the only country where the greater majority of husbands and wives continue to live together in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support.
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