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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Sison: Bill on mandatory pre-marriage counseling okayed
By Mark Allen C. Sison
Congress: Past & Present
JUNE is said to be a wedding month and sooner or later, all marrying couples will undergo mandatory counseling prior to the issuance of a marriage license as the committee on revision of laws has approved the "Mandatory Marriage Counseling Act."
Representative Rozzano Rufino Biazon (Muntinlupa City), author of House Bill 216, stressed the need for couples intending to marry "to be properly educated on the rigors of marriage to enable them to cope with the challenges they will face everyday for the rest of their lives." Biazon said that with the increasing number of failed marriages, mandatory counseling prior to the issuance of a marriage license is very important.
Biazon said pre-marriage counseling should be made mandatory for all marrying couples, not only for those between ages 18 and 25 who need either parental consent or advice in applying for a marriage license. "It is well for everyone to remember and realize that married life is not a bed of roses. It requires understanding between husband and wife maturity in dealing with problems that they will surely encounter, and willful effort on the part of both spouses to make it successful," Biazon said.
Biazon also asked the help of the social welfare department and religious groups in the crafting of a national standard curriculum for pre-marriage counseling. During a recent hearing of the house committee, executives of government agencies and a non-government organizations has endorsed the early passage of the bill.
Hannibal Galang of the social welfare department said the measure would boost the effort of the department to help prevent failed marriages. Representatives of the Pro Life Philippines suggested that aside from a priest, imam or minister lay pastoral care providers should also be authorized to issue a certificate attesting that the contracting parties have already undergone marriage counseling. The bill will amend Article 16 of the Family Code of the Philippines.
Creation of Artists Career Service to encourage artists to join public sector, if they wish, can pursue a career in the civil service without giving up their craft.
Representative Cynthia Villar (Las Piñas) has filed House Bill 1222 that seeks to establish the Artists Career Service, a system of recruitment, career progression, recognition and reward of artists in the public service, and a means of selecting, developing and retaining a pool of highly qualified and productive artists personnel.
Villar said a significant number of people with special talents in the different fields of art have joined the public sector. But these artists, Villar said, often attain the highest grades in the civil service at the expense of their craft.
"This results in artistic units in the bureaucracy being managed by artists who are not good administrators or who do not enjoy administrative work," Villar said.
Villar said through the bill, artists would be encouraged to pursue civil service careers and become administrators.
"The recognition by law that the evidence of their talent and the ways they have developed it should be the principal bases for the selection, the appointment, promotion and other personnel movement of artists," she said.
The Las Piñas lawmaker said the Artists Career Service would be closely patterned after the Scientific Career System where scientists ascend the ladder as scientists rather than as administrators. Under the bill, the Service shall include personnel who have been recognized as having talent in at least one of the fields of culture and the arts and who occupy positions in the government directly involved in the creation, performance, presentation and development of artistic work in music, literature, visual arts, film and media arts, theater and dance.
The Service shall give due recognition to the artists personnel of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and other units and agencies of the national and local governments, public enterprises and other branches of government that are engaged in culture and the arts and practitioners of traditional and indigenous arts.
(May 31, 2006 issue)
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