Philippine divorce bill’s passing hailed by women’s rights groups, but conservatives vow to fight back

Known as the Absolute Divorce Act, the bill was passed in the House on its third reading on Wednesday with 131 affirmative votes, with the count updated from its earlier announcement of 126 votes.

The Philippines and the Vatican are the only countries in the world that do not have laws enabling legal divorce.

According to its text, the bill is meant to liberate women from abusive relationships and help them “regain their dignity and self-esteem”.

“We are ready to celebrate. Our next step is the senate hearing in August,” Cici Leuenberger-Jueco, convenor of the lobbying group Divorce for the Philippines Now, told This Week in Asia shortly before the bill’s third reading.

Jueco has been lobbying for the reinstatement of divorce in the country over the past decade, following multiple unsuccessful attempts.

Women’s rights advocate Ann Angala said the bill’s passage on its third reading had made her hopeful of seeing the law’s enactment after a long delay.

Muslim Filipinos are currently the only citizens able to legally divorce under the country’s Code of Muslim Personal Laws.

In 1917, under the American occupation of the Philippines, divorce due to adultery or concubinage became legal. The divorce law was briefly expanded during the Japanese occupation of the country, when it allowed Filipinos to end their marriage on 11 grounds.

The law was repealed when the Philippines’ civil code was enacted in 1950 and replaced by provisions on legal separation.

When asked by a colleague in Congress about whether the new bill put married men at a disadvantage, Representative Edcel Lagman, the bill’s primary author, said: “The indelible data would show that wives are the aggrieved victims or parties in most cases of marital conflict.”

The bill’s