‘We Are Trapped’: Inside the Fight to Legalize Divorce in the Philippines

With tears streaming down her face, Stella Sibonga, 47, tried to maintain composure as she recalled the night she says her husband attacked her with a machete during a drunken rage. 

The altercation started when Stella confronted him about his drinking, the mother of three recalled. “He got mad, picked up the itak (machete), and charged at me,” she told More to Her Story while sobbing. “I ran as fast and as far away as I could,” 

The blade, which she claims her husband would regularly wield around while drunk, missed her face only by an inch, she said. “Had I not been able to dodge it, I would have been dead by now.” 

Realizing that she had nowhere else to go and feeling too ashamed to tell others about her marital problems, she returned home an hour later to find her husband sleeping. 

“The next day, it was as if nothing happened; he didn’t even apologize,” she said. “I stayed after that for the sake of my young children,” 

For nine years, Stella faced her husband’s violent outbursts. There was even one time, she said, when the man trashed their home while he was inebriated, destroying their furniture and the house with a machete. But despite the constant threat to her life and that of her children, Stella says she felt she had limited options for how she could escape. 

In the Philippines, a country where nearly 80 percent of citizens are Catholic, societal pressures to keep the family together run deep. The former Spanish colony remains the only country other than the Vatican where divorce is illegal, trapping women like Stella in abusive and, at times, exploitative marriages.

According to 2022 data from the Philippines Statistics Authority, up to 18 percent of women in the country experienced some form of abuse from an intimate partner. Many of them, like Stella, remained in abusive marriages because of the social stigma that comes with separating, especially for women who are often given outsized responsibility to keep a family together. 

Stella, who married her husband at 18, said her parents pressured them to marry after getting pregnant with their first child, a common scenario in the predominantly Roman Catholic country where having a child out of wedlock is often frowned upon. “I felt trapped with nowhere else to turn,” Stella said.

Her feelings of entrapment eventually led to desperation. On two occasions, Stella attempted to take her own life.

It was only her six-year-old daughter’s pleas that helped Stella muster the courage to live and leave. “My daughter approached me one time while I was crying. She told me that we should leave their father because she didn't want to see me cry and get hurt anymore,” she said. “It broke my heart to know that my children were hurting because they were seeing me in pain.”

In 2009, Stella decided to leave her husband and, in 2011, finally started the process of dissolving the marriage. “I paid a 45,000 peso downpayment to a lawyer,” she recalled.  

Stella Sibonga (left) on May 24 at the Philippine House of Representatives, as Divorce Pilipinas Coalition lobbyists await the results of the Divorce Bill’s third and final reading. Photo: Harry Forteza

In the Philippines, couples only have two ways to legally end a marriage and be allowed to remarry, either through filing a “declaration of nullity” or through annulment. Both involve arduous processes that can become extremely expensive for the average Filipino. An annulment, for instance, can cost around 200,000 pesos (approx. 3,500 USD) to around 800,000 pesos (approx 13,700 USD), which is even higher depending on the complexity of the case. 

Unlike divorce, which simply ends a valid marriage, annulment seeks to nullify and void the marriage. The latter, compared to divorce, has limited grounds, which only include things like fraud or psychological incapacity that can be very difficult to prove. “The grounds for annulment must have also existed at the date of celebration of the marriage, not things that happened after the marriage was solemnized,” Manila-based lawyer Philip Cabugao explained. 

After seven hearings, 300,000 pesos spent (approx. 5,100 USD), and thirteen years since starting the process, Stella’s marriage to her husband has still not officially been dissolved, despite being separated for 15 years. 

Like Stella, Deva Lyn Adriano, 41, had to deal with years of domestic abuse from her husband. She says her husband struggled with substance abuse and often stole her earnings to buy drugs. 

“Whenever he couldn’t get money from me, he would hurt me in front of the children,” she said. Eventually, he even started bringing other women into their home. “I chose to turn a blind eye and stay because I didn’t want my children to have a broken family,” she told More to Her Story. 

In 2017, Deva Lyn finally decided she’d had enough and moved out with her children. Seven years later, she still has not started the annulment process due to the steep costs.

Michelle Lopez, 38, also feels trapped in her marriage and has been unable to remarry and start a clean slate. 

Michelle says her husband has struggled with alcohol abuse and gambling and has had violent outbursts, which at one point resulted in him pointing a gun at her head. 

During an attempt to leave, Michelle said he followed her to her mother’s home, where she claims her husband choked her. Just as she was about to lose consciousness, she managed to reach an electric fan with her foot and kick it to call her mother’s attention, she recalled. Her mother heard the commotion and rushed inside the room to stop the attack. Yet not before her husband landed a punch to Michelle’s face, leaving her mouth bleeding profusely, she told More to Her Story. 

“I tried reporting the incident to the barangay (a local government unit), but nothing happened,” she shared. “No one else wanted to get involved, and each time, people wanted us to work it out to keep the family together,” she added. 

To escape, Michelle asked her mother to look after her children while she found a job in a different province. Twelve years after separating from her husband, she tried having the annulment process started but was told by a lawyer she’d be spending around 300,000 pesos (approx 5,100 USD) with a slim chance that it would be approved. (Domestic abuse on its own is not a ground for annulment in the Philippines.) 

Out of thousands of annulment requests filed each year, very few get approved by the courts. In 2017, for instance, out of 8,100 cases, only 29 were granted. 

Michelle claims her husband, who she said is deep in gambling debt, is now asking for half a million pesos in exchange for his cooperation for the annulment. 

Divorce Pilipinas co-founder AJ Alfafara at the Q Asia Excellence Awards in Manila. Photo: Harry Forteza

“There are so many other stories like this,” AJ Alfafara, co-founder of Divorce Pilipinas Coalition, told More to Her Story. AJ, who separated from her husband in 2012, organized the coalition with other affiliates in 2018. The organization now includes around 500,000 members who have been lobbying to legalize divorce.

In May, the Philippines’ House of Representatives passed the Absolute Divorce Bill, a seeming ray of hope for women who have been advocating for access to the option of divorce. In June, the bill was sent to the Philippine Senate, but not without opposition. 

During the May 13, 2024, session at the Philippine Senate. Senator Risa Hontiveros (center) encouraged senators to be open to discussing the legalization of divorce. Photo: Harry Forteza 

The Bill’s toughest roadblock is the influence of the Catholic church. According to the 2024 Philippine Trust Study released in November, the Catholic Church is still among the most trusted institutions by Filipinos, with a 92.4 percent trust rating. Politicians, including senatorial and presidential candidates, often seek church endorsements during elections since Filipinos often turn to the church for political and moral guidance. 

In a statement issued in July, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) reiterated their stance on divorce, asserting that while some marriages seem beyond repair, “going through times of marital crisis is almost a normal thing for all married couples and need not end too quickly in a parting of ways.”

Ms. Alfafara of the Divorce Coalition assured the CBCP that the bill is not a threat to healthy marriages or their religious beliefs. “Rather, it aims to assist those in ‘cadaver’ marriages—individuals separated for over five years, those facing abuse, and individuals living in harmful situations,” she said in a statement to More to Her Story. 

“Divorce (HB9349 & SB2443), once it is a law, is an option for those who wish to escape a cycle of violence that has been forcefully normalized, even romanticized within societal and religious contexts,” Ms. Alfafara said.

The Divorce Bill now awaits its second reading in the Senate, which will be subject to debates and amendments. It needs to be approved by the third and final reading before it can be sent to the President and signed into law. 

It faces opposition from conservative Senators, including Jinggoy Estrada, son of former Philippine President Joseph Estrada. In a previous interview, the Senator said the bill would not be a priority and would have to pass through the eye of a needle. “I’m a devout Catholic,” Estrada said in a statement explaining that he prefers to make the existing annulment process easier. 

Senate President Francis Escudero (left) discussing with other Senators at the Philippine Senate. Instead of having a divorce law, Escudero says he prefers making changes to the existing annulment procedures. Photo: Harry Forteza

More to Her Story reached out to the CBCP and the office of Senator Escudero for further comment but did not immediately hear back.

Ms. Alfafara believes that even with proposals to expand annulment, couples will still find it difficult to have their marriages dissolved due to systemic factors. The senators’ proposals “will not adequately address the current challenges faced by those seeking divorce,” she explained, arguing that the country still needs a divorce law to provide people with a clearer and more accessible option. 

As for Stella, whose daughter has now grown and become a nurse,  the trauma inflicted by her husband is something she has to live with. More than 15 years since the night of the machete attack, she still gets emotional whenever she remembers it. What makes it worse, she says, is knowing that despite all that she’s been through and all her efforts to have her marriage dissolved, at the end of the day, she is still legally bound to the man who abused her. 

“For many of us who suffered domestic abuse, we are trapped, with no chance to be free,”