Legalizing divorce / GMRC bill gets final House nod

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

THE House committee on family relations on Wednesday, February 5, approved three measures that seek to legalize divorce in the Philippines.

House Bill 100, authored by Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, will be combined with two other bills authored by Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas and Davao del Norte Representative Pantaleon Alvarez.

A similar measure was approved by the House on third and final reading under the 17th Congress, but failed to get the support of the Senate.

Lagman said it was the farthest that any bill of this nature reached the legislative mill.

“What was even more astounding was the fact that representatives crossed lines to support the measure, even after President Duterte’s spokesperson announced that the President does not support any bill allowing the dissolution of marriage,” Lagman told the media.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano earlier said that although he personally does not believe divorce to be the solution to troubled marriages, he will allow free and open debate on the divorce bills.

“Some believe that divorce is the solution, some, like me, do not believe, but we are not stopping any of the committees from discussing all of these bills,” Cayetano said.

At this time, those who are seeking freedom from their spouses will have to wait. 

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Earlier on Tuesday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved on third and final reading a measure institutionalizing values education in the curriculum by incorporating "Good Manners and Right Conduct" (GMRC) as a subject in Kindergarten up to Grade 3.

Based from a PNA report, with 225 affirmative votes, zero negative votes, and no abstention, the chamber passed House Bill 5829, or the proposed Good Manners and Right Conduct Act, which was principally authored by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano.

The bill seeks to institutionalize GMRC as part of the Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao (EsP) curriculum of the Dept. of Education's K to 12 Program.

Cayetano pushed for the passage of the bill to strengthen Filipinos' common core values and inculcate universally acceptable moral standards.

The GMRC shall inculcate among the students the concepts of human dignity, respect for oneself, and giving oneself to others in the spirit of community, for the effective and holistic development of the decision-making skills of the child.

The curriculum shall also focus on the basic tenets of GMRC, such as caring for oneself, giving concern for others, according to proper respect to people, upholding discipline and order, cultivating sincerity, honesty, obedience, and above all, love for the country.

"The teaching method shall be actual or situational, rather than conceptual, thereby, allowing students to directly relate to the lessons, readily put them in practice, and make such behavior commonplace," the bill read.

The DepEd, as the lead implementing agency, shall carry out the appropriate training for teachers and educators in Kindergarten to Grade 3 on GMRC to develop and enhance their capacity to teach the subject.

House Committee on Basic Education and Culture chairman Roman Romulo, sponsor of the bill, noted that the current values education program lacks the actual and situational activities necessary so that the students could embed the values in day-to-day life.

“Currently, they have a subject called EsP but the subject itself is being taught in a theoretical manner, meaning definitions are taught and memorized,” Romulo said.

“What we want and what we have put in this bill is that the teaching of Good Manners and Right Conduct be also actual and situational so that the learners from Kinder to Grade 3 would be able to imbibe properly the lessons for the day,” he added.