CEBU – The proposed law that seeks to reinstate the conjugal partnership of gains as the basis of property relations of marital institutions in the absence of any marriage settlement or prenuptial agreement is currently pending before the Senate for action.
Deputy Speaker for the Visayas and Cebu second district Rep. Pablo Garcia, who is the principal author of the House Bill 2420, said the provisions of the new Civil Code concerning marriage and family relations has remained relatively constant. It has been firmly established for almost four decades since its adoption in 1950 and for more than 100 years before that under the Old Civil Code, he added.
“The conjugal partnership of gains stands on a firm foundation, has even withstood the rigors of time, tested and proven,” he stressed.
According to Garcia, the conjugal partnership of gains are deemed most viable in safeguarding the rights of the spouses and has been generally accepted, practiced and firmly established in marital institutions and recognized in other institutions as well.
“Scores of jurisprudence from no less than the highest judicial institution itself would lend support to the fact that the conjugal partnership of gains has not only been firmly established, accepted and recognized but has, in more ways than one, become an institution itself,” Garcia explained.
The legislator said the radical change made upon the effectivity of the Family Code of the Philippines making the absolute community property as the property regime governing property relations between husband and wife without marriage settlements.
“The system of absolute community property as contemplated in the new family code partakes the kind of property relations wherein both spouses upon entering the marriage, shall become common owners of all properties they had previously owned individually prior to their marriage,” said the former Cebu governor.
Garcia added such a system of absolute community “fails to consider the vagaries of life, the idiosyncrasies of people, and that spouses, as human beings, are likewise prone to human weaknesses and errors.”
The absolute community property leaves too much leeway for abuse to be flagrantly committed, the very reason why safeguards are evidently very difficult to enforce, he stressed. — Garry B. Lao/WAB (THE FREEMAN)