A bill proposing civil recognition of all church-decreed annulments to make them accessible and not expensive to many Filipinos has been filed at the House of Representatives.
READ: Bill says 5-year split enough for annulment
House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez and Tingog party-list Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez filed House Bill 11577 recognizing the civil effects of church annulment.
“Priests, pastors, imams, and rabbis who solemnize marriage must have the authority to solemnize granted by the State,” the Romualdez couple said in defending the measure, or ‘‘An Act Recognizing the Civil Effects of Church Annulment, Declaration of Nullity and Dissolution of Marriages and for other Purposes.’’
“Therefore, if a marriage can be legitimately contracted under the laws of the Church, then it follows that under the same laws, such marriage can also be nullified or annulled.”
Meanwhile, Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez has refiled the absolute divorce and civil partnership bills”•two of the measures he pushed during his term as Speaker of the House of Representatives”•in the 18th Congress.
In the previous Congress, the House approved on third and final reading its version of the absolute divorce bill, then numbered House Bill 7303, but the Senate did not approve it.
The Romualdez couple said the bill will not jeopardize the indissolubility of marriage.
While safeguarding the sanctity of marriage, the Romualdez couple said, their bill is an offshoot of Pope Francis’ decision to simplify the procedures for annulling marriages in the Catholic Church after the complaints that its current system is cumbersome, costly and often unfair.
They recalled that Pope Francis’ introduction of a “briefer annulment process that involves the local bishop, and requires only a single judgment, dropping the need for an automatic appeal to a higher tribunal,” will be useless if the state will not recognize the Church annulment.
Pope Francis even asked bishops that the annulment process be free of charge or at least be subsidized for those who cannot afford it.
Under Presidential Decree 1083, the State recognizes divorce under the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines, which is based on the Sharia or Islamic law.
“Under the principle of equality before the law, if a Muslim divorce is recognized, there can be no serious objections toward the recognition of the civil effects of a marriage by an established and duly recognized religious denomination, the proposed law says.
Before the 17th Congress ended, the House of Representatives with an overwhelming 203 votes approved the bill on third and final reading.
The bill provides that whenever a marriage, duly and legally solemnized by a priest, minister, rabbi or presiding elder of any church or religious sect in the Philippines, is subsequently annulled or dissolved in a final judgment or decree in accordance with the canons or precepts of the church or religious sect, the said annulment or dissolution shall have the same effect as a decree of annulment or dissolution issued by a competent court.
The measure provides that the status of children of marriages subject of the Church annulment decree shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of Executive Order 209, otherwise known as the Family Code of the Philippines.
In case the ground for Church annulment decree is not similar to any of the grounds provided in the Family Code of the Philippines, their common children born or conceived before the issuance of the Church annulment shall be considered legitimate.
READ: Romualdez proposed bill on annulment backed