One of the first cases that I handled after I took my oath as a member of the Bar involved the severance of marital relations that the client said had become an unbearable burden because of her philandering husband.
In law school we were taught that marriage was not an ordinary contract but an inviolable social institution that everyone should seek to preserve. Growing up, we also learned that the union between man and woman was of God and that what He has joined together, no man should put asunder.
I asked the client if there was a chance that her differences with her husband could be resolved out of court. She said no before I could finish the question. The last two years of her 10-year-old marriage had her trapped in “living hell,” she said, and she wanted herself and her daughter to live a normal and peaceful life.
When she recited the things that her husband did to her and daughters, I decided to file the petition to declare her marriage a nullity because her husband was psychologically incapable.
At that time, it did not cost much to maintain a petition of that nature. You can engage the services of a psychologist for only P5,000 and with P50,000, you can hire a lawyer without additional cost including appearance fees.
There was only one family court in Cebu at that time, but its calendar was not clogged probably because not too many spouses were aware of the executive order that made it easier to unburden themselves of the oppressive weight of a toxic and hopeless relationship. Thus, cases were decided in two to six months from the filing of the petition.
So many things have changed since my client walked out of the courtroom smiling and free. Maintaining a case for annulment of marriage has become very difficult and expensive. The fees that lawyers and psychologists charge have grown tremendously; the courts’ dockets are swarmed with so many petitions for annulment, resulting in so many unresolved cases; and the prevailing doctrine has made it difficult to obtain freedom from marital bondage.
The question now is whether Art. 36 of Cory Aquino’s Executive Order 209 may have outlived its usefulness. The law was supposed to make easier the process of terminating a marriage that has gone desperately wrong, short of a divorce. It looks like it failed in that regard.
So now, a growing number are clamoring for a divorce law. The advocates point out that we’re the only country in the world outside of the Vatican that prohibits divorce. Opponents, mostly coming from the Roman Catholic Church, say that such fact should not be treated as a badge of shame but of pride and distinction.
Tell that to the married people I have met during the nearly 50 years that I have practiced law. Listen to them tearfully recount how they have been physically and psychologically abused; the OFW who came home to find out that his wife had wasted all the money that he earned through sweat and tears in gambling, drinking sessions and maintaining a younger boyfriend; and the wife who learned from her children that her husband brought his girlfriend to their home, invited her to sleep in their room wearing her clothes while she was away for a medical procedure and how her husband beat her black and blue when she confronted him.
They cannot go to court because they cannot afford the P300,000 for lawyer’s and psychologist’s fees alone. And even if and when they do go to court, they will have to wait longer than one year, unsure if the decision is going to be favorable; and if it is, wait many more years wondering if the decision will become final and when, after the Solicitor General has appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court.
I agree that marriage is an inviolable social institution and that no man should put asunder what God has joined together. But how can you address the cases of couples who have been chained to a marriage that is beyond salvation? I care about them too. We should.