Group 1

Camaro, Ramjee Gilbert II

Reyes, Healy
Amarilla, Anna May

Divorce (or dissolution of marriage) is the termination of a marriage or marital union, the
canceling and/or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus
dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the
particular country and/or state. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world, but in
most countries it requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process. The
legal process of divorce may also involve issues of alimony (spousal support), child
custody, child visitation / access, parenting time, child support, distribution of property, and
division of debt. In most countries monogamy is required by law, so divorce allows each
former partner to marry another person; where polygyny is legal but polyandry is not,
divorce allows the woman to marry a new husband.
Divorce should not be confused with annulment, which declares the marriage null and
void; with legal separation or de jure separation (a legal process by which a married
couple may formalize a de facto separation while remaining legally married) or with de
facto separation (a process where the spouses informally stop cohabiting). Reasons for
divorce vary, from sexual incompatibility or lack of independence for one or both spouses
to a personality clash.
Divorce can be a stressful experience, affecting finances, living arrangements, household
jobs, schedules, parenting and the outcomes of children of the marriage as they face each
stage of development from childhood to adulthood. Such children may be deeply affected
Under Philippine law, two people wishing to end their marriage have limited options. They
can file for legal separation, which will allow them to separate their possessions and live
apart, but does not legally end a marital union and thus does not permit remarriage. They
can file for divorce if they are among the estimated 5 percent of the population that is
Muslim and is governed by the Code of Muslim Personal Laws.
Or they can get an annulment, which in the Philippines is a lengthy and expensive court
proceeding. (An ecclesiastical annulment, granted through a Church tribunal, is a separate
procedure, without which a Catholic cannot get remarried in the Church. Pope Francis has
said that the Church should streamline this process, which can take up to a decade.) An
annulment ends a marriage, but differs from divorce in important ways. The parties, for
instance, must prove that the marriage was never valid to begin with. Under Philippine law,
reasons can include one or both parties having been below the age of 18 when they got
married, either party having an incurable sexually transmitted disease, or cases of
polygamy or mistaken identity.
Divorce has not always been banned in the Philippines. The Spanish colonizers who ruled
the island until the late 19th century imposed their own Catholic traditions, allowing
relative divorce, or legal separation, in cases involving adultery or one spouse joining a
religious order. But the relevant law declared that so great is the tie and force of marriage,
that when legally contracted, it cannot be dissolved even if one of the parties should turn

heretic, or Jew, or Moor, or even commit adultery. After the Spanish era, divorce laws
depended on the colonizer. The Americans, who acquired the nation in 1898 following the
Spanish-American War, allowed divorce, but only on the grounds of adultery or
concubinage. The Japanese, who occupied the Philippines during World War II,
introduced liberal divorce laws. Following liberation, however, divorce was once again
outlawedexcept among the Muslim minorityunder the Philippine Civil Code of 1949.
If marriage is essentially a contract, the difference between an annulment and a divorce is
the difference between declaring the contract nullbecause, say, it was signed under
conditions of duress or fraudand terminating it.
In the case of marriage, declaring the contract null is a far more difficult proposition.
Infidelity and physical abuse, for example, are not on the list of acceptable reasons for a
marriage to be declared invalid under Philippine law. A petitioner seeking to leave a
marriage for those or any number of other reasons has to try to prove that his or her
spouse is suffering from psychological incapacity such as narcissistic personality
disorder. -The Atlantic Monthly Group
We find [the husbands] alleged mixed personality disorder, the leaving-the-house
attitude whenever they quarreled, the violent tendencies during epileptic attacks, the
sexual infidelity, the abandonment and lack of support, and his preference to spend more
time with his band mates than his family, are not rooted on some debilitating psychological
condition but a mere refusal or unwillingness to assume the essential obligations of
marriage. -The declaration of the Supreme Court in 2006 in the case of Amy Perez
Philippine law, in general, does not provide for divorce inside the country, and remain the
only UN-member state to do so. The only exception is with respect to Muslims, who are
allowed by their religion to divorce in certain circumstances. For the majority non-Muslims,
the law only allows for annulment of marriages.
Women's groups have clamored for legalization of divorce, but all past attempts to ratify it
into law have failed.
Article 26 of the The Family Code of 1987 does provide that:
Where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and a foreigner is validly celebrated
and a divorce is thereafter validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating him or
her to remarry, the Filipino spouse shall have capacity to remarry under Philippine law.