The State of Our Nation’s Foundation
ANGELO E. BASE
a.ka. “Papa Angelo, The Life Mentor” God and Man’s Laws Life Counselor Founder/Managing Director BCIDP Exclusive School for Couples Philippines
A Member of BCIDP Law Group Philippines
On 31 December 2015, Rappler published: “IN NUMBERS: The State of the Nation Marital Woes”, where the state’s lawyer reported an annual average of 10,000-11,000 annulment / nullity of marriage / divorce recognition cases filed since 2010. These “dissolution of marriage” cases are initiated by whom? The WIVES.
In a continuous effort of some sectors pushing for the divorce law in the country to seemingly “end” their marital woes, “annulment and legal separation remedies (available) are not enough for (these) divorce advocates”. But “the Senate did not match the House’s enthusiasm for the divorce bill, and it failed to hurdle the 17th Congress.
Surprisingly, the enactment of VAWC law or Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act No. 9262 last 2004 did not help at all to curb the rising cases of domestic violence to women and children. In 2019, an article was published at the website of Ateneo De Manila University, School of Social Sciences, where it says that 16 years after the passage of the said law, it did not help at all to reduce the cases as statistics show otherwise. Hypothetically, “hindi mo pwedeng sindakin ang mga Pilipino kahit anong pangil pa ng batas ang ilagay mo diyan”. RIGHT education by the parents from infancy to adolescence is what every Filipino human being needs.
The average Filipinos have developed a culture of “turning to the government” to provide solutions to life’s personal problems despite claims to being “the only Christian nation in Asia” and “80% of its population are pre-dominantly “Catholics”. [Those who broke away from being Catholics have called themselves as “Protestants” or “Christians”]. In other words, despite this fact of being “Godly people” or “conservative people” as the world would say, majority of Filipinos do not see the “Supreme Being” as the only 100% source of solutions to life’s complicated problems as evidenced by these studies and continuous findings on “the state of the nation’s marital woes”. The Constitutional formula of “separation of Church and State” seems ineffective for three (3) decades now, to our view.
God’s Constitution, written in the sacred writings called the Bible, says:
Proverbs 11:14: “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers”. – NIV
Right after the Marcoses were thrown out of Malacanang Palace through a “People Power” revolt, in 1987, an Executive Order No. 209 was issued by then President Corazon Aquino where the “Family Code” was born. Its Article 149 says:
“Art. 149. The family, being the foundation of the nation, is a basic social institution which public policy cherishes and protects. Consequently, family relations are governed by law and no custom, practice or agreement destructive of the family shall be recognized or given effect. (216a, 218a)” (emphasis ours)