Bill allows Pinoys married to foreign divorcees to remarry

Voting 202-3, the House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill that recognizes, and enforces as well, a foreign decree granting divorce to a foreigner – eventually allowing a Filipino spouse to remarry.

House Bill 7185, which seeks to amend Executive Order 209 (Family Code of the Philippines), also seeks to recognize the foreign decree of termination of marriage and allows its subsequent registration with the Philippine Civil Registry.

The proposed amendment of EO 209 states that, “The Filipino spouse need not seek recognition or enforcement of the foreign decree of termination of marriage.”

“The registration of the duly authenticated foreign decree of termination in the Philippine Civil Registry shall be sufficient proof of capacity to remarry,” a portion of the divorce bill reads.

It further states that, “where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and a foreigner is celebrated and a decree of termination of marriage is thereafter obtained abroad by either spouse and subsequently registered in the Philippine Civil Registry as provided in Article 13 hereof, the Filipino spouse shall likewise have capacity to remarry under the Philippine Law.”

The amendment also states that Article 412 of the Civil Code shall not apply in recognizing the termination of marriages in the bill.

Any agreement on the liquidation, partition and distribution of properties of the spouses, the custody and support of common children, the delivery of their presumptive legitimes included in the degree of termination of marriage shall be recognized, according to the bill.

Other provisions can be availed of by a Filipino who is married to a foreigner whose marriage has been terminated abroad by either spouse, including a Filipino whose marriage has been terminated abroad prior to the effectivity of the proposed law; who has been divorced from a spouse who had subsequently acquired foreign citizenship; or who has subsequently acquired foreign citizenship and who has divorced from the Filipino spouse abroad.

Authors include House Deputy Speakers Pia Cayetano and Gwendolyn Garcia, Reps. Edcel Lagman (Albay), Sol Aragones (Laguna), Emmi de Jesus (Gabriela), Evelina Escudero (Sorsogon), Bernadette Dy (Bagong Henerasyon), Cristina Puno (Antipolo).

No less than the seat of Catholicism – Spain, which propagated the faith in the Philippines and Italy, where the Vatican is located – have their own divorce laws that “do not make them any less Catholic,” one of the main authors of the divorce bill said.

“These countries have similar provisions in their respective constitutions, which mandate the state to protect marriage and family life,” Lagman, co-author of House Bill 7303 (Absolute Divorce and Dissolution of Marriage in the Philippines), said.

He pointed out that “Catholic Latin American countries, including socialist Cuba, and Catholic countries of Europe, including fiercely Catholic Ireland, Italy and Spain have their own divorce laws, which do not make them any less Catholic.”

Lagman argued that nothing is cast in stone even if a provision of the 1987 Constitution provides for the “inviolability” of marriage as an institution, but which he insisted does not necessarily prohibit absolute divorce.