House Bill 1799 or An Act Introducing Divorce in the Philippines, Amending

for the Purpose Title II, Articles 55 to 66 Inclusive and Article 26 of Executive
Order 209, As Amended, Otherwise Known As the Family Code of the Philippines,
and Repealing Article 36 of the Same Code, and For Other Purposes, commonly
referred to by the general public as the Divorce Bill. This was filed in July 27,
2010 by Luzviminda Ilagan and Emerenciana de Jesus of the GABRIELA Womens
Party.
This bill seeks to amend the Family Code to include divorce as a remedy for
valid, yet failed and irreparable marriages. This is also in order to solve the
situation of battered women stuck in abusive marriages in order for the
attainment of [their] full human development and self-fulfillment and the
protection of their human rights not remedied by a decree for legal separation
which merely allows a separation of bed and board but do not sever the bonds of
marriage. Amending Article 55, the bill proposes five (5) grounds for divorce,
namely: (1) The petitioner has been separated de facto from his or her spouse for
at least five years at the time of the filing of the petition and reconciliation is highly
improbable; (2) The petitioner has been legally separated from his or her spouse
for at least two years at the time of the filing of the petition and reconciliation is
highly improbable; (3) When any of the grounds for legal separation under
paragraph (A) of this Article has caused the irreparable breakdown of the
marriage; (4) When one or both spouses are psychologically incapacitated to
comply with the essential marital obligations; (5) When the spouses suffer from
irreconcilable differences that have caused irreparable breakdown of the
marriage. Any of the five grounds above-mentioned would be sufficient for the
severance of the marriage bonds.
Pursuant to the proposed Article 55 (b)(4) and Section 5 of said bill, Article
36 of the Family Code (void marriage due to psychological incapacity) would be
repealed. Psychological incapacity being sought to be included as a ground for
divorce as a recognition of the termination of marital ties as opposed to a void ab
initio marriage. Under Article 36, the psychological incapacity must be shown to
exist during the celebration of marriageas opposed to which, under this proposed
bill, would have no such requirement.

This bill also proposes to amend Article 26 of the Family Code which
recognizes divorces obtained abroad by an alien spouse to also recognize divorces
obtained abroad by a Filipino citizen after a determination by a Philippine court
that the same is based on a ground falling under Article 55(B) of this Code.
It also seeks to eliminate condonation and consent to any act
constituting a ground for legal separation or divorce as grounds to deny a petition
for the same recognizing the social or economic realities and conditions that the
offended spouse may be in. The removal of these grounds would empower more
the offended party to address the situation.
In the explanatory note, the authors of the bill expressly recognizes the
sanctity of the institution of marriage with the emphasis on the quality of marital
relationships: when a marriage is no longer viable, divorce should be an option.