Cover For many, divorce isn’t an escape but a final act of care, bringing clarity where conflict once lived (Photo: Getty Images)
For many, divorce isn’t an escape but a final act of care, bringing clarity where conflict once lived (Photo: Getty Images)
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In a world where marital vows are meant to last a lifetime, what happens when the fairytale ends? We delve into the issue of divorce, where the promise of forever meets the final policy of goodbye
In the Philippines, we have a deep and complicated relationship with endings. We sing of forever. We accept hardship as duty. We trust in vows, sometimes without question. Even before colonial churches shaped doctrine, family was already sacred. In precolonial barangays, kinship structured society. In this system, bloodlines, not territorial borders, were what truly defined connections and interactions among people. Homes were centres of belonging, governance, moral order. Long afterward, family remains the anchor of identity.
This explains our reluctance toward divorce. It is not only bishops or constitutional law. It is the belief that marriage upholds the household, and the household upholds the nation. That belief now faces a reckoning.
In May 2024, the Philippines’ House of Congress approved the proposed Absolute Divorce Act on second reading. The bill now awaits Senate review, where cautious optimism and principled hesitation walk a narrow path. Senator Loren Legarda, who signed the committee report, remains measured. “I want to see final safeguards in place”, she said, “particularly mechanisms that protect the poor, uphold the sanctity of marriage where it can still be preserved, and ensure the law will not be wielded carelessly or in haste.”
Her caution is well placed. Legal divorce, even under strict guidelines, is more than policy. It shapes cultural expectations. It redefines permanence. It gives a concluding form not only to relationships but to commitments.
And yet, some marriages are unbearable. To force people to remain is cruelty, not fidelity. In countries where divorce is legal, around 40 to 45 per cent of first marriages dissolve, a reflection of a persistent pattern rather than a passing trend. In the US alone, a quarter-million marriages end each year. This stark reality is amplified in nations like the Maldives, Kazakhstan and Russia, widely cited in global divorce rate analyses as having some of the highest figures, painting a picture where permanence is increasingly the exception.
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Above In the Philippines, where marriage is seen as sacred, legal divorce remains a deeply contested path—caught between cultural values and lived realities
In the Philippines, where marriage is seen as sacred, legal divorce remains a deeply contested path—caught between cultural values and lived realities
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The moral weight of staying also struck Bette Davis. I mentioned her story to Dr Virginia Miralao, secretary-general of the Unesco National Commission of the Philippines, a distinguished sociologist whose wide-ranging expertise includes family dynamics, youth studies and gender issues. Davis held on to her fourth marriage until it became a threat to her child. She saw the divorce not as freedom but as a failure, the collapse of her belief in “existence as forever”.
Dr Miralao responded with sobering clarity. In mature divorce societies, nearly half of marriages end in dissolution. In that reality, permanence becomes the exception. “Today, around half of marriages end up in divorce, with persons seeking a second or third divorce comprising not an insignificant few,” said Dr Miralao. The institutions that once sustained family life—extended kin networks, communal rituals, moral norms—begin to fray. This is not a myth. It’s supported by study after study outlining the risks: children in divorced homes face more instability, households are more likely to become economically insecure and community cohesion can suffer.
But there is evidence that divorce can also save lives. Research shows children raised in high-conflict intact families often do worse than those in low-conflict separated ones. When separation comes with civility and support, it can prevent harm rather than cause it.
“Annulment or legal separation is not enough... Absolute divorce offers Filipinos a path to finality, safety and freedom with dignity”
Monique Madsen, a divorced Filipino who spent her married life with her Danish husband across the world, including Copenhagen and Shanghai, knows what it means to walk away with clarity and care. “Love also means wanting the other person to thrive, even if that means doing so apart,” she said. “We had both given it our best. But there was a quiet understanding toward the end.”
She described an ongoing effort to stay kind, even through heartbreak. “When talking in person felt too heavy, we phoned each other. When talking led to arguments, I wrote emails. When emails didn’t land, I sent short text messages, just reminders of the love that remained. That even in separation, we could still move through it together.”
Our legal alternatives fall short. Annulment claims a marriage never existed. Legal separation forces residence apart without closure. Neither allows remarriage, and both are slow, costly and inaccessible to many. Countless families already live as though separated, without dignity, legality or protection.
Senator Legarda sees that gap. “Annulment or legal separation is not enough,” she said. “Absolute divorce offers Filipinos a path to finality, safety and freedom with dignity.”
The proposed bill does not offer escape. Instead, it sets forth narrow grounds—irreconcilable differences, abuse, prolonged separation and psychological incapacity, a concept sharpened by a Supreme Court ruling in June 2025, which clarified that a spouse’s profound inability to love or emotionally connect, when rooted in a genuine mental disorder, can indeed be a valid basis. Its provisions include a 60-day pause, mandated judicial oversight, established custody and property arrangements, waived fees for indigent petitioners and the recognition of valid foreign divorces.
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Above Divorce often comes with financial strain, as couples navigate shared assets without clear legal pathways
Divorce often comes with financial strain, as couples navigate shared assets without clear legal pathways
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But law alone is not the solution. “Even with simplified procedures”, Legarda emphasised, “people still face barriers—lack of legal knowledge, geographic inaccessibility, social stigma. We must invest in legal aid, strengthen public information campaigns and make sure that those in the most rural or underserved communities have a pathway to justice.”
She made clear the distinction. “This bill treats divorce not as a quick or casual option but only as a last resort when the marriage has become irreparably broken and the wellbeing of those involved is at risk,” she explained.
That line—between escape and responsibility—is crucial. Divorce should never be the default. But neither should it be unthinkable. It must exist in a framework that supports healing, parenting and social reintegration.
French sociologist David Émile Durkheim warned of anomie, a drift into normlessness when old standards collapse. But perhaps, we are already adrift. Perhaps our reluctance to confront difficult separations, and our absence of options, has created a form of national invisibility—marriages that endure outwardly but crumble inwardly.
That sentiment draws us back to the central question Senator Legarda posed: “Which matters more? Protecting the sanctity of marriage, or protecting the people inside it whose safety, dignity and wellbeing are at risk?”
That question is not theoretical. It asks whether Filipino law can affirm both cultural values and lived truths—whether, when the time comes, we can let go with compassion and with conviction.
And that may be the most Filipino thing of all.
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Images: Getty Images
