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[av_heading heading=’ RAMBLINGS OF THE UNMARRIED | Law and faith’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY GORDON Q. GUILLERGAN
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Thursday, March 30, 2017
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WE ALL know there is this separation of the Church and State, also known as the Establishment Clause of our 1987 Constitution under Section 6, Article II – “The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable.”
This is further supported as a right under Article III, Section 5 – “No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.”
Interestingly, in the recent case of Valerio E. Kalaw vs Ma. Elena Fernandez, G.R. No. 166357, Jan. 14, 2015 with Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin as ponente, Article 36 of the Family Code was cited – regarding the annulment of marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity, and how it is patterned after Church doctrines.
Atty. Fred Pamaos, in The Philippine e-Legal Forum, noted that the Philippines is the only country in the whole world that does not have divorce. Still, this did not discourage the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) to make – in the language of the Supreme Court – an “exaggeration” in Molina that Article 36 was the “most liberal divorce procedure in the world.”
He further explained that in the Kalaw case, the Supreme Court noted that it was sensitive to the “exaggeration” of the OSG when it enunciated the “rigid” rules in Molina case, which became the basis of annulment cases with regard to psychological incapacity.
“The unintended consequences of Molina, however, have taken its toll on people who have to live with deviant behavior, moral insanity and sociopathic personality anomaly which, like termites, consume little by little the very foundation of their families, our basic social institutions.
“Far from what was intended by the Court, Molina has become a straitjacket, forcing all sizes to fit into and be bound by it. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Court, in conveniently applying Molina, has allowed diagnosed sociopaths, schizophrenics, nymphomaniacs, narcissists and the like, to continuously debase and pervert the sanctity of marriage. Ironically, the Roman Rota or tribunals of the Catholic Church which decides annulment cases of those which was celebrated under Catholic Rites has annulled marriages on account of the personality disorders of the said individuals.”
Article 36 is patterned after Church rules. As noted in Molina: “Since the purpose of including such provision in our Family Code is to harmonize our civil laws with the religious faith of our people, it stands to reason that to achieve such harmonization, great persuasive weight should be given to decisions of such appellate tribunal. Ideally — subject to our law on evidence — what is decreed as canonically invalid should also be decreed civilly void.”
It is sometimes hard for us in the Philippines to disintegrate the Church from our State because as members of whatever religious denomination, our elders would often speak about state matters and would give a piece of their mind, tending to condition us with regard our stand in these pressing issues. On the other hand, lawmakers are members of their own religious denominations and tend to act more based on their faith and not on the Constitution.
There is nothing wrong with acting based on your faith or making decisions based on your religious convictions. I firmly believe that it is because of faith that laws were made – faith that believes a society may be made better if laws were enacted. It is that faith on a higher being, be it God or Allah, that made us lay down these laws.
We must remember that long before any other constitutions or canons were written, God already laid down laws for Adam and Eve and the Ten Commandments for Moses to share. This was where other written laws were patterned. (gordon.qg@hotmail.com/PN)
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