I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people.
Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody.
This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice.
Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!
Legal separation, or partial divorce, is the alternative to annulment. These are the grounds:
1.) Repeated physical violence to the petitioner, a common child or a child of the petitioner
2.) Physical violence or moral pressure to make the petitioner change his/her religion or political affiliation
3.) Attempting to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child or the petitioner's child to engage in prostitution or connivance in such corruption or inducement
4.) Conviction by final judgment where the respondent's jail term is more than 6 years -even if pardoned
5.) Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism
6.) Lesbianism or homosexuality
7.) If the respondent contracts a later bigamous marriage, regardless of whether it's in the Philippines or abroad
8.) Sexual perversion/infidelity
9.) Attempt on the petitioner's life
10.) Abandonment without justifiable cause for more than 1 year
The respondent has the following defenses available:
1.) The aggrieved party condoned the act/offense complained of
2.) The aggrieved party consented to the act/offense complained of
3.) Both parties connived with each other with regard to the act complained of in order to form a basis for a case of legal separation
4.) Both parties have given ground for legal separation
5.) Collusion between the parties in order to obtain a decree of legal separation
6.) The case of legal separation is filed more than 5 years from the time the cause occurred
Any of the above defenses, if proven, can deny the granting of a decree of legal separation.
Before the court will entertain an suit for legal separation, the following requirements must be observed:
1.) Cooling-off period
When the case is filed, 6 months must be allowed to lapse before the actual proceedings can take place.
2.) Reconciliation efforts
There will be no grant of a legal separation decree until the court has exhausted all efforts to make the parties reconcile.
There is another reason why the two requirements are mandatory; the court wants to find out if there is no connivance or collusion between the parties in order to get the legal separation decree.
If a decree of legal separation is granted, the following are the effects:
1.) The spouses can live separately but the marriage is not dissolved
2.) The absolute community regime or conjugal partnership will be dissolved and liquidated but the guilty spouse won't be entitled to the net profits
3.) The innocent spouse will be awarded the custody of the minor children
4.) The guilty spouse will be disqualified from inheriting from the innocent spouse via intestate succession
5.) Provisions in the will of the innocent spouse in favor of the guilty spouse will be revoked by operation of law
6.) Donations made in favor the the guilty spouse may be revoked
7.) Designation of the guilty spouse as beneficiary in an insurance policy may be revoked, even if the designation was stipulated to be irrevocable
Reconciliation of the parties will have the following effects:
1.) The proceedings -if still pending- will be terminated, regardless of what stage they're in
2.) If the separation decree is final, it will be set aside but the separation of property and any forfeiture of property will subsist unless the spouses agree to revive their property regime
3 comments:
Am writing this on behalf of a friend, whose husband left her in 2005 for another woman in a bigamous relationship. She caught them in flagrante w/ a love child and filed for legal separation, but the guy asked for "another chance" which she granted in court. Anyway, that was in 2005 but my question really is, why is the law unable to grant her legal separation, just because the cause (bigamy, abandonment) occured MORE THAN 5 yrs ago? Doesn't this perpetuate the injustice done to her?
Hi. That's one of the sad things about our marriage laws. When I was in first year, this was taken up. A lot of the women in my class weren't very happy about it. The reason is back when the law was written there were almost no women in congress and most of the congressmen and senators were members of the "landed aristocracy." They purposely made it that way in order to protect their own selfish interests (a.k.a. their affairs.)
I agree that it's unjust. Good thing we have more women in the legislature now. We will have to try to convince them to modify the rules on legal separation.
There is something else that may be done. Under the VAWC Law (RA 9262) if the husband abandoned the woman and her child, it could be considered economic abuse. You can check it out here:
http://philcritic.clickbankphilippines.com/2011/09/ra-9262-vawc-law.html
and don't forget to read the related article at the end.
Hope this helps.
Hi. I would like to ask what you think about the latest trend in legal separation in the Philippines? Do u know any jurisprudential development?
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