Disrespect to marriage (Expensive path to marriage annulment) ALTES Facts & Quotes Billboard New York City, Oct. 12, 2014 Excerpts from “World’s last legal ban on divorce doesn’t keep Philippines couples together” by Tom Hundley and Ana P. Santos, The Washington Post, Oct. 10, 2014. (Hundley is senior editor at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Santos is the center’s 2014 Persephone Miel fellow. – WP) ● When Filipinos fall out of love – “Just because the Philippines is the last major country on Earth to refuse to allow divorce for most of its citizens, that doesn’t mean Filipinos don’t fall out of love with one another. “So what to do? One recourse for those who stray is to separate, move on to the next relationship — and live in sin. The alternative, in a country where the Catholic Church still wields enormous influence, is to follow a torturously convoluted — and for many, prohibitively expensive — path to an annulment.” ● Question of divorce – “The absence of modern divorce laws looms large in the Philippines, a poor but rapidly transitioning society with a large migrant workforce and many transnational families. The church will stick to its guns on this issue, even as a synod that convened at the Vatican in recent days takes up the question of divorce, among other subjects.” ● Dysfunctional marriages – “As it stands, though, tens of thousands in the Philippines are stuck in difficult or dysfunctional marriages, torn between the teachings of their faith and a humiliating legal limbo.” ● Annulment process – “An annulment, for those who pursue one, means the marriage never happened. It pits spouse against spouse — as divorce often does — but it also pits both against a church canon lawyer or a state prosecutor whose job it is to defend the sanctity of marriage. Infidelity, desertion, physical or psychological abuse, irreconcilable differences or just the reality that two people simply can’t stand the sight of each other anymore — the usual reasons for divorce — cannot be considered in a civil annulment proceeding. “It helps to pay the judge a bribe — politely referred to as a “professional services fee” — to speed the process and guarantee a positive outcome.” ● Church annulment or civil annulment – “For now, couples wanting out of a marriage can choose between a church annulment or a civil annulment; most opt for the latter. Either way, they must establish that there was some fatal impediment to the marriage from Day One: that one or each was too young to get married, was coerced into the marriage, or — most common — was psychologically “incapacitated” at the time of the marriage.” ● 10,257 annulment cases – “Last year, the courts in the Philippines, with a population of 100 million, heard just 10,257 annulment cases, granting about 95 percent of them — a minuscule number for a large country. But rather than universal marital harmony, the small number is indicative of another reality: This is a poor country, and going to court to get an annulment is simply too expensive for most of the population.” ● $1.15 a day – “Studies in other countries show that divorce rates are highest among the poor, and there is little doubt among family experts that poverty contributes significantly to marital break-ups. In the Philippines, 28 percent of the population is classified as “extremely poor,” living on $1.25 or less per day.” ● Living in sin – “For many of these Filipinos, even getting married is beyond their means. Despite their deep faith, a large percentage find themselves — in the words of the church — living in sin. Often, these unrecognized unions endure, but when they do fail, the partners simply move on to the next relationship.” ● 10 million migrant workers – “Another stress on marriage in the Philippines is the economy’s dependence on remittances from a vast army of migrant workers. With the government’s encouragement, more than 10 million Filipinos work outside the country. Often these workers are forced to live apart from their spouses for years at a time. More than 70 percent of them are women.” ● Only nation to forbid divorce – “The Philippines became the only nation generally to forbid divorce in 2011, when the tiny Mediterranean nation of Malta voted to allow it. Philippines law does allow divorce for the country’s Muslim minority — about 11 percent of the population.” ● Disrespect to marriage – “Noel Segovia, a senior lawyer in the Philippine Office of the Solicitor General, the state agency charged with upholding the sanctity of marriage, said it is time for the Philippines to seriously consider divorce. “We have to be realistic,” he said. “The church says divorce disrespects the sanctity of marriage, but what about the spouses who do not show love, respect and fidelity to their spouses by their acts of marital infidelity, spousal and child abuse, or who continuously fail to comply with the marital obligations? Is that not a form of disrespect to marriage?”
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 10:15:38 +0000
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