MANILA (UCAN): The Philippine justice secretary, Jesus Crispin Remulla, said on November 21 that recommendations by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s [HRC] for the country to legalise divorce, pass pro-women and gender-sensitive laws were “unacceptable” to the Filipino people “as of the moment.”
“It’s a matter of [public] policy whether we accept it or not and I think we know as a country, we are not ready for that,” Remulla told reporters.
“We have to reject it. Culturally, our values may conflict with many of the values that they [Western countries] want to impose upon us. We are not ready for that, culturally we are not ready for that. That is our position right now,” he added.
However, the Gabriela Women’s Party had urged Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., to support a pending divorce bill, asking that he not “immediately” reject the HRC’s recommendations such as the passage of laws legalising divorce as well as same-sex marriage.
Arlene Brosas, the group’s representative, insisted that Marcos administration’s “rejection of the UN’s call for the country to legislate laws for divorce was tantamount to his non-recognition of rights, welfare and the struggle for equality of millions of Filipinos.”
Brosas castigated the bill’s critics, including the Church, for using religious arguments to oppose divorce.
We have to reject it. Culturally, our values may conflict with many of the values that they [Western countries] want to impose upon us. We are not ready for that, culturally we are not ready for that. That is our position right now
Crispin Remulla
“What is unacceptable is the use of religious arguments to weigh the necessity of such important legislation,” Brosas said urging the Marcos administration to reconsider its stance.
Another member of the group said Marcos lied during the elections when asked about his openness to supporting the divorce bill. “Obviously, he lied. Before the elections, he said he was open to have divorce in the Philippines in order to get the votes of the progressives or the liberals. But after that, he easily forgot what he’d said, despite a recommendation from the United Nations, an independent, international body,” Michael Rustica asserted.
Rustica was referring to Marcos’ interview where he said that divorce should not be “made easy” for the Filipino people.
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“There are real cases that I have seen where the spouses separate, we still do not have divorce, they separate and the kids are better off… the husband and wife are better off. We must allow our couples, our married couples to work hard on it because sometimes it can be fixed. We need to not give them an easy option,” Marcos told reporters on November 20.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines thanked the government for not only defending the family but also the children who would be victims of the separation of their parents.
“A failed marriage is not an argument for divorce,” said Father Rico Ayo, secretary of the Philippine bishop’s Family and Life Commission.
He said, “It is rather proof of the necessity that only mature people enter into it. It proves the woeful inadequacy of the present system under Philippine law that makes the issuance by the civil registrar of a marriage license and attendance at a government-delivered seminar on family planning the sufficient conditions for marriage.”
Catholic divorce advocates, however, insisted that the clergy not to dip their fingers in political matters such as the passage of divorce law.
