Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s top ally in Congress yesterday proposed new bills to legalize divorce and same-sex unions, a move almost certain to meet fierce resistance from bishops in the mainly Catholic country.
Opening the lower house for its second regular session, speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said he would file a bill to legally recognize civil partnerships between people of the same sex.
The Philippines would become the first Southeast Asian nation to legalize same-sex unions if he succeeds.
Alvarez said citizens should be allowed to divorce legally as much as same-sex couples should be allowed to have legally recognized unions.
“We must also be considerate of the fact that marriage may not be for everyone,” he said.
“Presently, it even excludes certain groups of people from its fold. Our citizens should not be excluded from society just because of the person they love. They must also be treated with equality before the law,” Alvarez said.
Twenty-seven countries, mostly in western Europe and the Americas, have already recognized same-sex unions.
Taiwan’s Council of Grand Justices in May ruled that same-sex couples” had the right to marry legally.
The Vatican and the Philippines are the only states in which divorce is outlawed.
The proposals by Alvarez drew mixed reactions from lawmakers, both allies and the opposition.
The Philippine bishops would most likely try to block moves to legalize divorce and same-sex marriages, although Catholic Church representatives were not immediately available for comment.
Congressman Teodoro Baguilat described the proposal as “bold, clear and progressive,” but representative Tom Villarina said congress should focus on passing an anti-discrimination bill put forward by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community because that proposal already had broad support.
In the most recent opinion polls, Filipinos overwhelmingly rejected same-sex marriages, with the latest survey in 2015 showing nearly 70 percent of 1,200 respondents strongly disagreed.
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
Another tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG (liquefied natural gas) 2 project has docked in a Chinese port, ship-tracking data showed, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) tracking data indicated the Russian Voskhod LNG tanker was anchored at an LNG terminal in the port of Tieshan in Guangxi, China. The Russian flagged tanker, with a cargo of 150,000 cubic meters of LNG, was loaded up at the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Gydan in northern Siberia on July 19, LSEG data showed.
RSS