The Philippines is one of only two countries in the world that prohibits divorce, and locals describe it as "divorce is a poor person's shackle, a rich person's privilege."
"Our people, whenever they love each other, will want to have a child together," said Eamma, my 24-year-old Filipino male teacher. Today was the first day of formal classes, and because of my journalism background, our discussions with teachers went beyond textbook content to conversations about local culture and economy, one-on-one, so we discussed things in considerable depth.
This topic came up because I shared that the cost of living in Taiwan is high, but average salaries are not sufficient to support marriage and raising children. "We can barely take care of ourselves, let alone raise children?" Eamma immediately responded that the Philippines faces the same high cost of living and low wages, but their people don't know how to prevent having children. When people love each other, they want to have a child, so a family might have as many as 6 to 7 children.
But there's another problem: "Filipino men only want to have children, not get married, because they don't want to take responsibility," Eamma said. His 19-year-old sister got married at 17, already has a child over 2 years old, and her husband is 26, but they never actually got married—they didn't even have a wedding ceremony.
Because in the Philippines, simply holding a wedding ceremony is considered a legal marriage; unlike Taiwan, where even after a wedding ceremony, you must register to be considered a legal couple.
Because Filipino men don't want to take responsibility, Filipino women not only marry early, are unable to attend university, don't have proper weddings, but also because they marry before understanding anything, without comprehending the nature of marriage, by the time they want a divorce, it's too late.
Because "divorce is illegal," women must go through extremely complicated court proceedings that could take 3 to 5 years, or possibly even 10 years. Interestingly, the divorce issue was discussed with another female teacher, Ai.
Ai said that wanting a divorce in the Philippines is not as simple as in Taiwan—just signing and paying. If you want a divorce locally, you still have to pay, but the cost is extremely high. According to online research I reviewed, someone once paid nearly $20,000 USD in legal fees for a divorce case, which is approximately three years of annual household income for an average local family! But because local people have poor economic conditions, there is a Philippine saying describing divorce: "Divorce is a poor person's shackle, a rich person's privilege."
There are also conditions for getting a divorce. Only if you meet the following conditions can you obtain a "petition" before you can then hire a lawyer.
- Lack of parental consent (if either party is at least 18 but below 21 years old)
- Psychological incapacity
- Fraud
- Forced or coerced marriage (consent for marriage obtained by force, intimidation, or undue influence)
- Impotence, physical incapability of consummating the marriage
- Serious sexually transmitted disease
"So does Philippine school teach knowledge about marriage?" I thought this might be like Taiwan's health education, so I asked. However, Ai said, "Filipino women get married very early. If school education taught this knowledge, they would actually be afraid to enter marriage." This perspective felt like déjà vu of Taiwan's sex education debate.
In fact, Filipinos are carrying out a social movement for "legalizing divorce." As of 2015, as many as 60% of Filipinos supported legalizing divorce. But the inability to divorce actually stems from Catholic faith, so only Vatican City and the Philippines have restrictions against divorce worldwide.
In March 2018, divorce legalization polls showed 53% support, and although the House of Representatives passed the bill, after it was sent to the Senate, it faced strict scrutiny. Several senators allied with President Duterte publicly opposed legalizing divorce, and there have been no new developments since.
On the third day of arriving in the Philippines, through English conversation lessons, I learned about the Real Life cultural aspects of the Philippines. This culture truly surprised me and gave me a preliminary understanding of the low status of Filipino women.
