IN 2015 “the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population” (3.6 billion). One year later, eight men – including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg – shoved 54 others out of the Forbes list. What happened to the 54? How could they have lost so much to just eight guys?
Money men would probably say that they made unwise investments, a psychologist could make a wild guess and say that they most likely lost their shirt paying alimony to their divorced wives. Divorce is a costly process, usually a case of “downward economic mobility” or the splitting of one income for two households (to be aggravated when one spouse, usually the husband, marries again).
A divorce bill, asleep in our Congress for something like 15 years, has been refiled, revived. What are the chances that it will make it to the Senate and then to Malacañang? A multiterm congressman’s off-the-cuff estimate: “The death penalty bill has a better chance of passing.” It’s easier for the House of the people’s representatives to kill convicted criminals than to punish married people for their mistakes. Besides, the “supermajority” of congresspersons are in the mood to show President Duterte their solidarity behind his wish for capital punishment as a deterrent to crime. Wait for Digong to drop a loud hint, even a jovial one, that he’s for a divorce law to punish the erring – or earning – spouse and our legislators will be singing another tune (how about “Broken Vow”?).
Right now, the one deterrent to divorce seems to be the penalty of alimony – husbands would rather die than pay good money religiously, regularly, to a wife whom they “don’t love anymore.” Alimony is all money, that’s what it is:
“court-ordered payment for the support of one’s estranged spouse in the case of divorce or separation” (Steven H. Gifis, Dictionary of Legal Terms). If a Philippine divorce law were to follow the American model, alimony would be payable within a period of ten or more years.
As if supporting one’s ex-spouse were not bitter enough, there’s the matter of child support, money to be paid to the partner who has custody of the offspring.
But without alimony and child support, what use is divorce to the litigant? Might as well stick to the euphemism of a declaration of nullity, or stick it out with an imperfect spouse and save money, forever. (Jullie Y. Daza)