The Other Side: 3 Filipinas Waiting For Divorce To Be Legalized

Disclaimer: Names of interviewees have been changed to protect their privacy and identity.

TW: Abuse, violence, cheating, and postpartum depression

The approval of the “Absolute Divorce Act” or House Bill No. 2593 in May this year by the House of Representatives is giving hope to women who have long been separated from their husbands but remain married on paper. The bill’s passage into law may not only give them the closure they have been seeking but can also provide them an inexpensive option to terminating their marriage legally.

Currently, there are three legal routes available for couples who want to separate: Annulment, Legal Separation, and Nullity of Marriage. All three are filed on different grounds and have different outcomes. The first allows the end of a marriage; the second allows the division of properties and end of marital obligations but does not allow either party to remarry; the third states that the marriage was void from the very beginning and is commonly used on the grounds of psychological incapacity. Both Annulment and Legal Separation are expensive, tedious, and may take years to be granted. This is the reason why couples in troubled marriages like that of M’s welcome the recent developments on the Absolute Divorce Bill.

M’s story: ‘I would like to be able to have the freedom to work towards my future’

“I would like the opportunity to live my life,” M, who wishes to stay anonymous, says. She cites several reasons for wanting another route to terminating her marriage. “I would like to be able to get a bank loan without (my ex’s) permission. I would like to buy property without worrying that, if I die, all my savings and investments go to him. I would like to be able to have the freedom to dream and work towards a future—my future.”

M was married civilly in 2015 and in a Christian church in 2016. On the same year as her church wedding, she separated from her husband after finding out that “he fell in love with a (common) friend”. However, prior to this revelation, there were red flags that their marriage was headed for trouble but M tried to ignore them for as long as she can.

‘It acknowledges that we were in fact married. Regardless of the circumstance or how loveless the marriage is, it acknowledges the truth.’ —M, on the difference of divorce from annulment

A Human Resources professional, M was already being trained for a managerial position in the Philippines but left it all behind when her husband managed to land a job in Singapore in 2015. She found it difficult to find a corporate job there and ended up as a part-time service crew in a restaurant. M says problems in their marriage began when her husband felt the burden of being the breadwinner. “He did not like that I was dependent on him… [and said that] my working in a restaurant was ‘not a real job’. Money was always an issue. He believed that marriage had to be 50-50,” she shares.

M went home to the Philippines after her husband admitted to finding someone else. “I confronted them a few months after our church wedding. He tried to deny it at first but the girl wanted to come clean—mostly to get me out of the picture. I went home to the Philippines two weeks after.

“I tried and asked if we could still work things out but he no longer loved me. He loves her and found his happiness. In retrospect, I don’t see it as a tragedy. It sounds like one even as I write it. But clearly, we had made wrong decisions. We were young, foolish, and naive. I also had romanticized the relationship to be able to overcome all issues,” she says.

M, who doesn’t have children with her husband, hit early menopause at 35 years old and will never be able to have biological children. Her husband tried to file for annulment but it didn’t fall through. She has neither filed for annulment nor legal separation she says because it has limits apart from the fact that they are expensive. “An annulment does not allow or protect either party because you are not supposed to talk about what happened. Separation partly allows for the separation of assets, but it does not allow re-marriage,” she argues. “Divorce allows us to talk about shared property and how to split our lives. Divorce allows us to move on with our lives,” she adds.

She also notes that divorce, unlike annulment, acknowledges the truth. “It acknowledges that we were in fact married. Regardless of the circumstance or how loveless the marriage was/is, it acknowledges the truth. This is even more true for marriages that have actually been marriages for longer than mine.”

Maan’s Story: ‘My sons and I just want to move on and heal’

“I have not tried to file for annulment because it is expensive and there is no assurance that even after you spent so much time, effort, and money the annulment will be granted. I would rather use my income to provide for my boys,” says Maan Pamaran, a mother of four boys who managed to ‘escape’ from her husband for good six years ago after yet another threat of physical abuse.

Married for 24 years, Maan says she and her sons experienced physical, emotional, and financial abuse while in the marriage. “It felt like we were walking on eggshells because anything can be triggering for him. I still have a noticeable bump on my forehead from the time that he punched me. I was still working full time at publishing company then. I just told people that I hit my head on the door,” she reveals.

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Her ex-husband also has a child with a mistress, says Maan. “His family was forcing me to get the child from its mother, in their words, ‘para mailayo na siya sa babae’ I had no intention of doing that.”

‘Divorce may not forgive my mistakes but it will help us move forward and, perhaps, (we can) eventually forgive ourselves for the mess that we’ve made.’ —Sheila, mother of 3

Maan and her sons—who are now 23, 19, 18, and 16—have managed to move on. “We are now in a safe place, in a home that is happy and thriving. My three sons are doing very well in school. My eldest already graduated from college, with honors. They all help me around the house, and sometimes even with my work,” she shares. “Because of my experience, I make it a point to be vocal about what happened to me, so that other women can also think about leaving their abusive relationships,” she adds.

In the absence of a father, the eldest son has taken on some of the responsibilities, says Maan. “My eldest messages the sister-in-law if there is anything that needs to be relayed. My eldest has actually signed on as his brothers’ legal guardian so we don’t have to pass through the dad for anything needed in school forms, etc.” For financial support, her husband sends a ‘paltry sum each month as sustento’ adds Maan.

Maan favors divorce not only because it is less expensive and less difficult to obtain but it will also enable her to pursue better financial support for the boys and give them better protection from further harassment from her husband and his relatives. “My sons and I just want to move on and heal,” she says.

Sheila’s Story: ‘Divorce will be the fastest and cheapest way for our closure’

The House of Representatives laid out several grounds for couples to be able to consider Absolute Divorce, among these physical violence directed against spouse and children, drug addiction and habitual alcoholism, abandonment, and infidelity to name a few. In the case of Sheila, she admits to being the ‘offending party’ by having had an affair while still married but she is hopeful that a divorce will bring a closure to that chapter of their lives. More importantly, that it might help pave the way for her to see her two children again after almost 13 years of separation.

“Divorce will be the fastest and cheapest way for our closure. The thing with annulment is that [it requires] court appearance and scrutiny which I don’t think I would like to subject myself to,” says Sheila. “Divorce will be the least disruptive of all the legal processes in case it becomes available for us and will not require both of us to be there. And it would be acceptable to file for divorce now that it has been a decade since that relationship ended,” she adds.

Sheila married at 22, just six month into a relationship with her now estranged husband. “It was mostly my parents who wanted me to marry him… I would like to think that they were simply worried about my welfare that when they met the man they thought was perfect for me, they jumped at the opportunity.”

She felt she could not simply say ‘no’ at that time. “My refusal might be taken out of context and I do not want to lose that relationship. So, I agreed and asked myself ‘why not’. I love the man so maybe it’s the right thing to do.” Sheila’s husband is 10 years older than she is and while she says age wasn’t really a problem then she would have liked to explore life more that time. “I’m just starting to date again, meet people, live my life like a full-fledged adult and I don’t think I was ready to settle down.”

Three years after getting married, Sheila gave birth to their first child. She was a working mom then but she and her husband managed. It was when they had their second child a year and half later that things took a turn for them. “I had to sacrifice my career at that time despite earning more than my husband. His parents said that they would fill the financial shortage that we will have since I resigned from work. And while it worked for a while, it was tricky for me to navigate a life without my own money because I had been working since I was in college.” It was here where she felt the generation gap surface, finding it hard to ask for money from her husband. “I went through a very weird phase of losing some sense of myself after giving birth to my second child. I was constantly depressed and always on the brink of tears and I couldn’t really explain why. The constant fatigue with hardly any time for myself and no one to really vent or talk to about all of it really drove me to the edge.”

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Feeling isolated, she reconnected with a childhood sweetheart on social media and had an affair. While Sheila and her husband tried to fix things, it did not work out until they thought some distance might help. “He helped me leave the country… but the distance only helped us to grow apart. I was not allowed to see my children and the last time I saw them was the night before I left for abroad. I wasn’t able to do video calls as well because my work ends during their bedtime and we are not allowed to use phones while at work.”

Sheila has moved on since and found a new partner with whom she has a child. They have been together for 11 years. Her two eldest children, now 15 and 13, continue to live with her husband who has also another child with his new partner. “One would ask why I did not fight for custody when they were still small. But he can always argue that I am unfit to be their parent because I cheated on him and that I am mentally unstable. I also do not want to subject his family and mine to a battle that might stress all of us so I respected him and what he did for the children in my absence,” she shares.

She says, annulment is not really an option because she cannot afford it. “I also do not want to cause unnecessary drama that would stress both our families and interrupt our family dynamic. The money that we would spend for annulment is much better used for the children’s education.”

Even if the Divorce bill gets approved at the Senate, Sheila says she has no plans of getting married again even if it will ‘liberate’ her from a bond that has been broken for a very long time. “Divorce may not forgive my mistakes but it will help us move forward and, perhaps, (we can) eventually forgive ourselves for the mess that we’ve made. And maybe, finally, I would be allowed to see my children again.”

Where is the Divorce Bill in the Philippines?

The Absolute Divorce Bill has still some hurdle to face before its passage into law. It is currently up for deliberations at the Senate but even at this body, opinions are divided. Some religious and faith-based groups have also opposed its passage arguing that it damages families and society. According to a June 2024 Social Weather Station survey, however, 50% of the Filipino adult population are in support of legalizing divorce for “irreconcilably separated couples’.

Navigating divorce in the Philippines, even if the bill gets passed, will expectedly encounter challenges but in situations that women like Sheila, Maan and M face, it can mean so many things that are just as important in life—freedom, healing, closure, forgiveness, second chance, and a new future for them and their children.

Violence Against Women and Children cases may be reported to any local police station. The following government agencies may also be contacted: Philippine Commission on Women and Department of Social Welfare and Development. VAWC cases may also be reported to NGOs such as Gabriela Women’s Party.

Want to read more about what parents in the Philippines think about The Absolute Divorce Bill? Read this story.