President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino on Thursday opposed a bill filed by two women lawmakers to legalize divorce but said he favors couples who are legally separated to remarry.
“I can’t support something like they do in Las Vegas in which the stereotype is you get married in the morning and get divorced in the afternoon,” Aquino said in an ambush interview with Malacanang reporters while attending an international motor show in suburban Pasay City, Metro Manila.
Aquino was reacting to the bill filed by Congresswomen Luzviminda Ilagan and Emerenciana de Jesus of the party-list group Gabriela who pointed out this would give “married couples in irreparable marriages another legal remedy” like divorce.
The bill, the two lawmakers pointed out, could help put an end to domestic violence still prevalent among married Filipino couples.
But Aquino insisted that divorce is not the solution, saying that he prefers the option of allowing legally separated couples to remarry.
Aquino, 50 and the country’s first bachelor president, is the only son of the late global democracy icon president Corazon Aquino, who was a deeply religious woman.
Aquino has a girlfriend, Councilor Shalani Soledad of suburban Valenzuela City in Metro Manila, but has been evasive on their marriage plans.
On Thursday, he was also non-commital when asked whether he would intervene to save the marriage of his youngest sister Kris, an actress who is known as the “queen of talk shows.”
Early this month, lawyers of Kris filed a petition before a Metro Manila lower court to annul her five-year marriage with James Yap, an equally popular athlete who was just named the Most Valuable Player in the just concluded tournament of the Philippine Basketball Association, Asia’s first professional league.
Aquino said that as president, he could not comment on the case of Kris because “whatever I say might influence the court.”
Under the country’s Family Code, annulment of marriage, either by the Catholic Church or by the civil courts, will allow either of the party to remarry.
The same code provides that although a couple may be legally separated, their marriage remains valid and thus, are not allowed to remarry.
But in opposing divorce, Aquino acknowledged there are marriages in which couples have irreconcilable differences.
Instead of divorce, the President said he favors legal separation as a more viable option for couples whose marriages are on the rocks.
But legal separation, Aquino said, should be granted only after a long process before each of the parties is allowed to remarry.
Loading ...
Reader’s Views