A news report says that President Aquino does not support divorce in the Philippines and seems to say that the way to go for troubled and irreconcilable couples is legal separation. Legally and morally, this is well and good.
President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III said he is not in favor of divorce bill being pushed in Congress.
“Divorce is a no-no,” he told reporters in an event at World Trade Center Thursday.
“Definitely I cannot support something like you do in Las Vegas, like you can stereotype that you get married in the morning you can get divorce in the afternoon,” he said further.
But what follows seems to show that the President himself is confused (highlights mine).
He said he would prefer legal separation instead but noted that both parties should be given freedom to re-marry.
Under Philippine laws, legal separation may be filed for valid reasons and subsequently granted for the couple to go their separate lives. The marriage bond is not severed, however. Since the marital bond still exists, the separated spouses cannot re-marry. Any marriage contracted by either or both parties with other persons while there is no judgment of annulment or nullity will be deemed null and void.
Divorce, on the other hand, "is the final termination of a marital union, cancelling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties."
Legal separation does not break the marital bond. Divorce breaks the bond, artificially. The difference posts a problem to the President's preference.
If the President believes that the spouses who are legally separated "should be given freedom to re-marry", isn't he, in the end supportive of divorce?
Either that, or he is in favor of going against the laws that prohibit anyone who is still married to another from contracting another marriage.
Or again, confused?
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