Yesterday, the Philippine House of Representatives approved on third and final reading a bill that promises to make the often long, tedious, and expensive process of marriage annulment easier — but only for unions already dissolved by a religious body.
House Bill 6779, authored by two woman representatives, Deputy Speaker Gwendolyn Garcia and Representative Yedda Marie Romualdez, states that any marriage solemnized by a “priest, minister, rabbi or presiding elder of any church” that had been dissolved by the corresponding religious body will “have the same effect” on the couple’s civil marriage.
Right now, only Muslim couples divorced under Islamic law can have their divorce recognized by the state.
If enacted, the bill will do away with a process that could take years to finish.
Carol Maralit, a Filipina woman who got her annulment case approved in 2004, told Coconuts Manila that it took her three years to get her marriage annulled. For her, the most difficult part was having to look back on a relationship that lasted more than a decade.
“[The hardest part is] recalling the start of the relationship until the time the person has decided to get an annulment. In my case. I had to go back 15 [years] ago, they want a detailed account of everything,” she said.
While the bill’s approval is momentous for a deeply Roman Catholic country — the only one apart from the Vatican where divorce illegal — it shouldn’t be taken as a sign of the Church’s declining influence. Actually, making the process of annulment easier was inspired by a change Pope Francis himself approved.
In 2015, the Pope revised the rules followed by the Church when reviewing annulment cases. He eliminated the need for a second approval from a Church cleric, gave bishops the authority to fast track some cases, and made the process free of charge.
The bill approved by Philippine Congress even mentioned this revision of the Church’s rules. But while it certainly makes the process of annulment less redundant and could benefit couples married under religions that are less stringent, it’s not going to be much easier for Catholics.
All annulment cases need to be approved by the Vatican and the Church only approves cases that fall under specific grounds. Many of them basically require the lack of proper consent from one of the parties.
Basically, “irreconcilable differences” isn’t going to cut it.
Maralit even decided not to get a church annulment anymore because she was not planning on getting married again.
Other bills that propose an easier process for legally separating with a spouse without a religious body’s consent still have not been approved by congress nor the senate.
House Bill 6779 still needs to be passed to the senate for approval before it can be enacted into law.
