No to divorce law

Just because other countries have a divorce law doesn't mean the Philippines must have one. It is time this country stopped looking over the fence to decide what works over there might also work over here. There is a reason why divorce applies in other countries and why it will not here. We are a family-oriented nation. Let us draw on that strength, not attempt to undermine and destroy it.

The best argument of the pro-divorce advocates is that divorce provides a parachute for couples whose marriage had stopped working in mid-air. At the risk of sounding insensitive to those truly hurting, let me say marriage, like a plane flight, is no joke. If you hate turbulence or thoughts of crashing, then do not get on board because there is no getting off in mid-flight.

Those who are for divorce think it is an escape hatch. That is only what they think. But divorce is more painful than that from which they are trying to escape. Nothing is more painful than a family ripped apart because the father and the mother have given up, inspired no doubt by the fact that there is an easy way out should a divorce law in fact come into effect.

Those who push for divorce, I am sorry to say, are rather selfish in thinking only of their own hurts and how they have become impossible to bear. But have they given a greater and more serious thought about what the painful consequences of divorce would be on the children? Children are very good in hiding their own hurts. It is easy for parents not willing to go the extra mile to miss this reality about children completely.

Without a divorce law, parents sensitive to the welfare of their children will realize the futility of constant wrangling and be driven to try even harder to make the marriage work. And if for no other reason than that there is no divorce law that they be driven to work harder at it, then so be it. Better that than getting a divorce for no othet reason than that it is there.

To be sure, there will be doomed marriages. But all things being equal, that is just the way it is. A doomed marriage is no more sad and unique than there are children born joined at some point in their anatomy. Things happen for a reason but reason does not happen for a thing. Let us not provide a reason to divorce by making it convenient to divorce.

There are far too many couples in this country of 110 million people whose marriages are working for them to give way to a minority who probably did not think as hard as they should have before signing on to a partnership they not only entered on their own but with the involvement of others who went out of their way to wish them well and expect nothing less than for them to give it their all.

Ni-absent ko sa trabaho, nanghuwam ko og barong, nangutang pa gyud para i-regalo, kay ninong gud ko. Unya magbuwag lang mo? Pagka mga tonto ninyo. Sa dili pa mo manghasol og ubang tawo, huna-hunaa ninyo og maayo. Dinhi sa Pilipinas walay diborsyo. Kung taas ka ra kaayo og garbo og dili ka magpa-ubos sa mister o sa misis mo, sus ondo o inday, ayaw pagdali-dali og minyo kung di ka segurado.