Thursday, August 23, 2007 Seares: Children of court weddings By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
LITTLE noticed by the locals were the rules issued last Aug. 11 by Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno to govern civil weddings.
After the tempest over the marriage scam in Cebu, strange that the Puno rules scarcely stirred public interest.
But reading those rules, one can see why Supreme Court made a lot of fuss, dramatized by the suspension of four judges, and what the controversy was all about.
It was about fees, yes, but it was also about defective papers, about couples who couldn't legally marry or could but wanted some rules bent, or, worse, about doubts over identity of those who vowed eternal fidelity before the judge.
Money was still evil's root. Fees beyond the P300 prescribed by law were collected and weren't receipted, which supplied cash to spread cheer in the courtroom.
Express lanes
Illegal exaction, they call it. And the judge condoned or abetted it by colluding with fixers, making judges' salas a kind of wedding express lanes.
More than illegal exaction was the violation of rules on civil weddings.
Distracted by the extra income, the court ring or mafia nurtured a culture that accepted improper and illegal shortcuts.
That was the bane of court weddings. While technically there are no secret weddings, court marriages were shrouded with some secrecy, its major lure, with this fringe benefit: a shorter, quicker quick route to matrimony.
Will children of court weddings curse or bless the judges who married their parents?
As long as the weddings didn't produce bastards, those children have as much chance of happiness or misery as the children of marriages made in heaven.
