No to the legalization of divorce

WE, Grade 11 students, recently learned that there has been a motion to legalize divorce in the Philippines. Divorce is already legalized in every single country around the world, except in the Vatican City and our own Philippines (The Economist, 2020). For this reason, it seems to many that it is only right that we follow suit.

At the moment, the only legal process similar to divorce in the Philippines is the declaration of nullity, which establishes a marriage as invalid from the beginning. In order to be considered void from the beginning, a marriage must fall under one of the following criteria: “absence of the essential requisites of marriage – consent and legal capacity of the parties, bigamous marriages, incestuous marriages, or psychological incapacity,” according to Calleja Law (n.d.).