In the Philippines, costly marriage annulments spur calls to allow divorce

Manila, the Philippines – Veronica Bebero recalls the despair she felt being interrogated by police inside a locked room at the United States Embassy in Manila.

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) investigators wanted to know why she had used fake marriage annulment documents for her US visa application.

Tears streaming down her face, the Manila-based acupuncturist remembers saying: “This has to be a nightmare, right?”

Bebero had turned to a woman who claimed to be a judicial official to secure an annulment after the COVID-19 pandemic derailed her efforts to go through the usual court process.

After she and her US finance had paid some 500,000 Philippine pesos (USD 8,862) in legal and admin fees, Bebero was attracted by the promise of a speedy annulment for a fee of 210,000 Philippine pesos ($3,722).

“She said I’d have my annulment in three to six months,” Bebero, 50, told Al Jazeera.

Bebero’s annulment never came. As she learned from the police, she had been scammed.

“There is someone out there who wants what I want, a nice peaceful marriage. If someone is willing to give that then I want to be able to give that back,” said Bebero, whose engagement with her fiancé fell apart under the strain of losing so much money.

The extraordinary lengths Bebero was willing to go to annul her marriage reflects the Philippines’s status as the only jurisdiction in the world, apart from the Vatican, that does not recognise divorce.

That leaves Filipino couples who wish to sever ties with no other option than an annulment – a gruelling process for Filipinos of modest means, in particular.

In the deeply Catholic Philippines, annulments typically take about two years, cost about half a million pesos and are usually only granted in extreme cases of abuse or incompatibility.

With legislative moves afoot, the reliance on annulments could finally be about to change.

In June, the Absolute Divorce Bill moved to the Senate after passing the House of Representatives in May.

Bebero and other backers of the bill view the prospect of legalised divorce as a lifeline, particularly for spouses who cannot afford a costly annulment.

One of the divorce bill’s main proponents is Congresswoman Arlene Brosas, who says the reform would offer a way out for “marriages that have failed and have no other remedy”, Brosas told Al Jazeera.

“It’s for women who don’t have a choice and are financially trapped in abusive households.

Conservative senators have expressed their aversion to the bill, suggesting instead that amendments be made to the annulment law.

“Instead of divorce, why don’t we study how to make marriage annulments more acceptable and their processes less taxing?” Senator Jinggoy Estrada said in a statement earlier this year.

Philippine Senator Jinggoy Estrada [Rolex Dela Pena/EPA-EFE]

The Catholic Church, which holds significant sway in a country where about 80 percent of the population identifies with the religion, has been among the most fervent opponents of the bill.

Father Jerome Secillano, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), recently asked lawmakers why they were “harping on divorce” when they could amend existing laws.

Secillano blamed “unscrupulous lawyers” for charging excessive fees for annulments, making the process of invalidating a marriage “anti-poor”.

To prevent exorbitant legal expenses, the divorce bill proposes a cap on costs of 50,000 pesos ($886), much less than the typical cost of an annulment.

Attorney Minnie Lopez, counsel for the national women’s group Gabriela, said that annulments are costly by design to make the ending of marriages as difficult as possible.

“In court, it’s clear that most clients are well-off,” Lopez told Al Jazeera.

Lopez said that the push to legalise divorce is not just about affordability, but accessibility, too.

“Divorce expands the grounds where marriages can end, it expedites the process. It considers economic incapacity and urgency,” Lopez said.

Lopez acknowledged that the provisions in the proposed divorce legislation are part of an “ideal scenario” and bills often go through extensive revisions before becoming law.

If passed in its current form, the divorce bill would make court rulings immediate and allow applicants to represent themselves in cases where a lawyer is not necessary, such as in cases of bigamy or where a couple has been separated for at least five years.

The proposed law lists 13 grounds for divorce, including irreconcilable differences, compared with the eight allowed grounds for annulment.

Cici Leuenberger-Jueco of Divorce for the Philippines Now-International warns that scammers are preying on people such as Bebero who are desperate to leave their marriages.

In October 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the NBI to investigate the matter.

Leuenberger-Jueco said that very few women come forward to press charges against scammers because “they feel ashamed”.

“Or they sometimes settle if half of the money is returned,” Leuenberger-Jueco told Al Jazeera.

According to the latest Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) census, just 1.9 percent of Filipinos had either received an annulment, or gotten separated or divorced – the latter including those who wed overseas.

The census data from June also showed that just 51 percent of women were in the labour force, compared with 75 percent of men, meaning half of Filipino women depend on spousal or familial income.

The House of Representatives passed the Absolute Divorce Bill in May [Francis R. Malasig/EPA-EFE]

Sarah Abella, who heads a Violence Against Women complaint desk in Marikina City, said she receives calls from up to 10 distressed wives each day.

For them, any form of separation is too much of a financial burden to contemplate, Abella said.

“A wife can’t afford to leave, so she endures the pain of each fist,” Abella told Al Jazeera.

Some observers argue that legalising divorce could bring broader benefits for the economy as a whole.

Ella Oplas, an expert on gender and economics at De La Salle University, believes that allowing divorce could spur the country’s growth.

Assuming the pent-up demand for divorce is high, Oplas said separating couples would need to seek out new accommodations, creating a “higher demand for real property”.

Oplas said that allowing divorce could also result in “an increase in family consumption” as the rise in the number of households would bring about “two sets of groceries and expenditures.”

Since many women remain financially dependent on their spouses, however, Oplas said the country should expect transitional challenges.

The PSA recorded a poverty rate among women of 18.4 percent in 2021, up from 16.6 percent in 2018.

The statistics agency found that women ranked as the third-most economically vulnerable segment of society, after residents of rural areas and children.

Oplas said that while she supports the legalisation of divorce, the government also needs to do more to support women seeking financial independence.

For Bebero, the idea of saving up for another annulment application on an acupuncturist’s salary seems “impossible”.

She hopes that lawmakers will follow through on the proposed law change to give women like her a fresh start.

“Each paycheck goes to the bills and my two kids. I have no plans and I don’t really know where my life is going. But I carry on,” Bebero said.