Non necessity on legalizing divorce in the Philippines

 
Status quo on the reasons why most couples file for divorce
 
Claim: Main reasons why couples divorce are incompatibility, infidelity, and conflict among couples.
 
Support: According to various studies, the most common causes of divorce are conflict, arguing,
irretrievable breakdown in the relationship, lack of commitment, infidelity, and lack of physical intimacy.
The least common reasons are lack of shared interests and incompatibility between partners
 
Attack: Thus, the claim on the affirmative side stating that Philippines' no divorce policy worsens cases
on domestic violence and inaccessibility among women is inconsistent with bodies of literature as
stated.
 
Support:
If divorce is legalized in the Philippines, it is not a quick remedy to protect women and children from
abusive husbands or fathers
 
In fact according to statistic reports, countries where divorce is legal are not free from domestic abuse.
 
In the Philippines, 19 people fall victims of marital violence EVERY DAY. In the US, 20 people fall victims
of intimate partner violence EVERY MINUTE (that’s 28,800 every day). Though, there are differences
between these countries, it is a fact that countries where divorce is legal have also an alarming rate of
domestic violence. Hence, divorce is not the solution to reduce domestic violence but rather strengthen
a functioning social security system and implement national strategy for comprehensive violence
prevention and functioning institutions for its implementation, as found effective based on studies by
the international organization Safer Spaces
 
Remedy:
Since the main reasons why couples divorce are incompatibility, infidelity, and differences among
couples. The remedy should be to raise the quality of marriages to be enforced by the State protecting
the sanctity of marriage. This is supported by a study entitled "Finding of Unhappy Marriages" where
they reveal the most important finding where two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided
divorce or separation ended up happily married five years later.
 
In relation to divorce and domestic violence, State must further protect and strengthen the vulnerable
sector not through legalizing divorce, which is not an effective alternative option since an abusive
divorced spouse may likely do the same to their next partners. Rather availability of crisis intervention
strategies, provision of advocacy and legal assistance, and most importantly, researchers think that the
best solution for domestic violence is to prevent people from becoming abusers in the first place.
 
Status quo of Filipino families in the Philippines
 
Claim: For State protecting marriage is crucial as stipulated in data and common experience, the
stability of a country is dependent on it.
 
In a scientific study, Happiness Among Urban Poor Filipino Families, results show that most of the poor
families were either happy or very happy. The primary sources of happiness of the families include good
family relationship, family togetherness, having children, faith in God, and good health. On the other
hand, learning to be content, finding ways to solve their problems, engaging in leisure activities, and
developing optimism were the things that the families do to achieve or experience happiness. Despite
being poor, the families were happy mainly because they have close family relationships and are
contented with their lives. The study provided valuable contribution to understanding why Filipino
families show happiness despite poverty.
 
In fact, researchers from Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, gathered data from 17 countries, and found
that parental divorce have larger negative impact compared to that of parental deaths. Children of
divorced parents, however, tend to have much less contact with their nonresident parent, as well as
that parent’s family and friends over time, providing less opportunity to compensate for the loss in
parental resources and support (Steele, Sigle-Rushton, and Kravdal 2009; Westphal, Poortman, and Van
der Lippe 2015).
 
Much worst, studies have consistently held that children who grow up without a father are five times
more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20
times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away
from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of the community are weaker
because of it.” (Barack Obama, Father’s Day speech, 2008).
 
Therefore, Filipino culture focuses on family as a foundation for physical and emotional development,
moral nourishment, and spiritual well-being. The breakup of a family ruins not only the marital
relationship, but also the moral and spiritual development of children. As such, the proposed divorce
law seems to be incompatible with the Philippine Constitution’s protection of marriage.