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Friday, December 13, 2002
Only rich can afford annulment: RTC judges
By Ana Felicia Dulay
MOST Regional Trial Court (RTC) judges agree that only rich people can afford to have their marriages annulled, citing that a requisite in the judicial declaration of nullity of marriage requires at least P20,000 in professional fees.
Psychological incapacity is among the grounds for declaring the nullity of a marriage supported by a psychological report.
According to Judge Jesus Quitain of RTC Branch 15, since the enactment of the law on nullity of marriage, psychologists all over the country hiked their fees.
He said psychologists held a conference and agreed to a fixed, standard rate for professional fees.
Quitain said an ordinary housewife habitually mauled by a drunkard husband could not afford to have her marriage annulled.
"Kadtong asawa nga nag-puyo sa SIR (Matina) nga kanunay gikulata sa iyang bana nga hubog dili maka-file og annullment," he said, citing the reason as the exorbitant fees. (A wife living in SIR Matina who was consistently beaten by her husband could not file an annulment case.)
According to Quitain, there were suggestions to utilize psychologists in the government service.
There are a number of government psychologists who can prepare the report free of charge, he added.
Executive Judge Virginia Europa collaborates Quitain's statements, saying there are indeed moves for government psychologists to provide free professional services to the poor.
Europa also acknowledged the difficulty in obtaining civil marriage annulment.
"It is not easy to get an annulment," she said, adding that the court wants to preserve the family.
"We must exert efforts to preserve the family," she said.
Europa said psychological incapacity encompasses a broad definition, which includes grave, antecedent and incurable drug addiction, habitual alcoholism, lesbianism or homosexuality.
Judge Renato Fuentes of RTC Branch 17 said that nymphomania (for women) and serialisis (for men) are also included in the definition.
Tendency to commit crime and being a troublemaker in general can also be classified as psychological incapacities, Fuentes said.
He said that the Canon Law of the Catholic Church was applied as basis in defining psychological incapacity. Fuentes believed that the grounds for nullity of marriage are broader than the divorce law. AFD
(December 12, 2002 issue)
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