House defers divorce bill transmission to Senate

MANILA, Philippines — The secretariat of the of the House of Representatives will hold transmitting House Bill 9349, or the Absolute Divorce Act, to the Senate pending the questions on how the votes of its members were counted.

According to House secretary general Reginald Velasco, those questioning the vote count can raise their concerns when Congress resumes session on July 22.

“Those (questions) can be discussed in the plenary when the session resumes. But for now, we will not transmit the bill to the Senate yet,” he told The STAR.

Velasco said the affirmative votes for the measures were adjusted because the secretariat was to count all of the votes favoring divorce in the country.

He noted there had been confusion during the nominal voting as House members were approaching the secretariat individually for their votes. “The secretariat just made a correction,” he said.

As to whether or not there were sufficient votes to approve the measure, he maintained this is up to the plenary to determine.

Two members, who have been opposing the controversial divorce bill, have questioned the legitimacy of the measure’s passage on May 22, saying it was approved only by a “minority vote.”

Echoing the opinion of former Senate president Tito Sotto, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and CIBAC party-list Rep. Eddie Villanueva said House Bill 9349, or the Absolute Divorce Act, did not get the required votes to institute divorce in the country during plenary deliberation last Wednesday.

Rodriguez noted based on the final tally on the floor, it was officially announced that the controversial measure got 126 affirmative, 109 negative and 20 abstentions.

After this, he noted that Velasco issued an advisory setting the votes at 131-109-20.  

“There is an increase of five affirmative votes … This cannot be done as the period and process of voting was completed (May 22) evening when after the votes of each member were cast, these were tabulated and the Speaker (Martin Romualdez) announced the final vote on the floor and properly entered into the Journal,” he added.

For his part, Velasco explained that before the adjournment of session last Wednesday, it turned out that there