Sen. Pia Cayetano may revive 'long-overdue' divorce bill 

Senator Pia Cayetano may soon become the proponent of another controversial bill, the lawmaker revealed during the weekly Kapihan sa Senado on Thursday.

 

Cayetano, chair of the Senate committees on health and demography and youth, women, and family relations, co-sponsored the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

 

While the RH bill has yet to pass the Senate, she said she may soon file a bill introducing divorce to the Philippines, where only annulment is an option for couples who wish to part ways.  

 

There is a bill pending before the House of Representatives introducing divorce. There is no similar measure in the Senate, although Cayetano said she remembers Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago filing one during a previous Congress.

 

"I can easily file one.  I have no issue with that, it's just really a matter of how to go about it," said the senator, who herself is separated from her former husband.

 

"We have time to debate this passionately and intelligently... patapos na ho yung RH.  Ano pa hihintayin natin? Matatapos na rin ang term ko, so I might as well... Senator Miriam is… leaving… I don't know if anyone else will take this up," she added.

 

Cayetano's term will end in 2016 while Santiago, who authored the RH bill in the Senate–and is a supporter of divorce–is set to take her seat in the International Criminal Court.

 

Although there is no divorce bill pending before the Senate, Cayetano said she has already begun discussing the issue in committee hearings on the Family Code.

 

The divorce bill is "long-overdue" because Filipinos prefer to leave alone issues which we consider as "sensitive and personal," noted Cayetano. 

 

"The time has come for us to realize that many things that go on in a family's home require legislation and require policies that will ensure that the rights of the individual are respected," she said.

 

"I have been confronted with situations where mostly women, sometimes men, are desperate because they are in relationships which are very harmful not just to their health but also to their physical health," she added.

 

She likewise said the Church cannot cite its teachings to counter the passage of the divorce bill like what happened with the RH issue.

 

"All Catholic countries in the world have divorce, so anong point natin? We want to be able to say that we're the only country with families willing to suffer? Is that something we are proud of?" she said.

 

"What does it mean na mapagtiis tayo? Does it mean na ignorant tayo? It just means the policymakers refuse to look at these issues, that's what it means," she added. —VS, GMA News