House-approved divorce measure encounters a problem during Senate transmission

The Office of the Secretary General postponed transmitting the House of Representatives' measure on absolute divorce to the Senate, therefore the law has not yet been delivered to the upper house. On May 22, the bill was adopted by the lower house.

“The purported reason for the delay is that there is a need to report for the Plenary’s action the corrected affirmative votes from 126 to 131,” Lagman said in a letter released to the media on Wednesday.

“I beg to disagree. There is no need to wait. Whether the affirmative margin was 126 against 109, as initially reported by the staff of the Office of the Secretary General, or 131 to 109, as subsequently corrected on the same day, the irreversible fact is that the affirmative votes got the majority of those who voted with the presence of a quorum and without the abstentions being counted,” he asserted.

Lagman said that even if the number of affirmative votes changes, the outcome will remain the same. A non-House member has voiced protests about the outcome. On July 22, 2024, during the House's Third Regular Session, corrections may be made. Corruption, religious or political coercion, abuse, and physical assault are all grounds for an absolute divorce.

Below are the other grounds mentioned in the measure:

Final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than six (6) years, even if pardoned

Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism or chronic gambling of the respondent

Homosexuality of the respondent

Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or abroad

Marital infidelity or perversion or having a child with another person other than one’s spouse during the marriage, except when upon the mutual agreement of the spouses, a child is born to them through in vitro fertilization or a similar procedure or when the wife bears a child after being a victim of rape

Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner, a common child or a child of the petitioner

Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one (1) year

When the spouses are legally separated by judicial decree for more than two (2) years, either spouse can petition the proper Family Court for an absolute divorce based on said judicial decree of legal separation

Via Inquirer