Bill seeking marital rape as ground for annulment filed

MANILA, Philippines - Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo has proposed that acts of physical and sexual violence, including marital rape, be made additional grounds for the annulment of marriage.

Romulo filed House Bill 6297 seeking to amend the Family Code, which he said would “give victims of abusive marriages the chance to escape domestic violence to genuinely start anew.”

“This is more in line with the spirit of the state’s mandate of according full protection to women, while at the same time ensuring that violence has no place in any family, thereby maintaining the sanctity of the Filipino family,” he said.

Romulo expressed his concern over incidents of battery and sexual abuse against women, which seem to be increasing and many of which are reportedly committed inside the family home.

He said only a few complaints for violence inside the conjugal dwelling were filed in courts because of fear of the trauma they might cause their children after seeing their mothers send their fathers to jail or basically because of their financial dependency on their husbands.

When a marriage has been severely damaged by the infliction of physical or sexual abuse, the full potential development of the wife as well as the children is already impeded, Romulo said.

“If filing criminal cases against their partners is not an option, they must at least be given a way out that will enable them to start over with their lives and, more importantly, be assured of their safety,” he added.

Under Romulo’s bill, physical violence refers to any act or series of acts committed against the spouse or child that include bodily or physical harm.

On the other hand, sexual violence refers to an act, which is sexual in nature, committed against the spouse or child, but is not limited to rape, sexual harassment, acts of lasciviousness, treatment as a sex object.