President Benigno Aquino III Thursday rejected a proposal to legalize divorce in the Philippines but favored legal separation for couples in failed and irreparable marital relationships. Aquino told reporters in an ambush interview that he “cannot support” moves to legalize divorce, which Gabriela party-list Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emerenciana de Jesus have proposed. “Divorce is a no-no,” said Aquino, the only son of the late former president Corazon Aquino who was a devote Catholic. “I cannot support something like they do in Las Vegas. The stereotype is you get married in the morning (and) you get divorced in the afternoon,” Aquino said. However, the president said he was aware that “there are unions that no matter what interventions are done, no matter what counseling is done, (the couples) really cannot stay together and there are dangers to either one or both parties.” Aquino said in cases like this, couples have the option to separate legally. Once legally separated, these couples should be allowed to remarry, he added. “In legal separation, it will be very, very stringent, you really have to ascertain that there really are irreconcilable differences. It will take a long period, like going through the eye of the needle. But at the end of the day they should be allowed to remarry. That's okay,” he said. The president's comment appears to be in contravention of Philippine law which says that legally separated couples “shall be entitled to live separately from each other, but the marriage bonds shall not be severed.” Asked on the marital woes of his celebrity sister Kris, Aquino dodged the question, saying his opinion might influence the courts processing the annulment of his sister's marriage with basketball player James Yap. “I am duty-bound not to comment on that,” he said. Kris has announced that she has given up on her marriage to Yap without revealing the exact reasons for seeking to annul their nearly five-year marriage. The Philippines has the distinction of being one of only two countries – the other being Malta -- that do not recognize divorce. The only recourse for couples facing marital woes in the Philippines is through annulment, or the process of the state declaring a bad marriage as null and void. But unlike divorce, the annulment process is tedious, long-winding and costly, which make it difficult for troubled couples to separate. In the bill filed recently at the House of Representatives, the proponents have spelled out five grounds for the termination of marriage – if the spouses are already separated de facto (in practice) for five years and reconciliation is highly improbable; if the spouses are already legally separated for two years; if the marriage is no longer working; if one or both spouses have psychological incapacity; or if the spouses have irreconcilable differences.
