Divorce Bill as a means of better or destructive future in the Philippines?

1. Indulgence on the Discourse
of Divorce Bill by means of
Michel Foucault
Archeological-Genealogical
Approach

2. MICHEL
FOUCAULT

3. BIOGRAPHY
• Born Paul-Michel Foucault in Poitiers, France on October 15,
1926
• Father was a surgeon who hoped Michel would follow in his
footsteps
• Known for his critical studies of various social institutions,
including medicine, education, psychiatry and his work on the
history of sexuality
• Influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant and
Georges Dumézil
• Experimented with the drug LSD in 1975, considered it the
best experience of his life

4. EDUCATION AND CAREER
• attended École Normale Supérieure; earned degrees in both psychology
and philosophy
• Was a member of the French Communist Party from 1950-1953; later it
was said he never was an active participant
• Taught psychology at the University of Lille from 1953-1954
• 1954-1958 - served as a cultural delegate to the University of Uppsala in
Sweden
• Also held teaching posts at Warsaw University, the University of Hamburg
and the University of Tunis throughout the late 1950s and 60‟s
• Also earned his doctorate in philosophy
• 1970- elected to France's most prestigious academic body, the Collège de
France as Professor of the History of Systems of Thought
• First visited the U.S. in 1970- lectured at the University of Buffalo and UCBerkeley

5. THE IMITATION OF LIFE
• Foucault‟s writings on sexuality are thought to have been
influenced by his homosexuality
• In the 1970‟s and 80‟s, Foucault participated in anonymous
lifestyle in San Francisco. It is suspected during this time, he
contracted HIV
• Died of an AIDS-related illness on June 16, 1984; the 1st high
profile French personality to be reported as an AIDS victim
• Originally slated to be a six-volume project, his work The
History of Sexuality was never fully published due to
restrictions within his estate.

6. DISCOURSE
The analysis of discourse rigorously ignores
any fundamental dependence on anything
outside of discourse itself; discourse is
never taken as a record of historical events,
an articulation of meaningful content, or
the expression of an individual or collective
psychology.

7. Instead, it is analyzed strictly at the level of
„things said‟, the level of which statements
have their „conditions of possibility‟ and
their conditions of relation to one another.

8. ARCHIVE
It is usually taken to be the total set of collected
texts from a given period (or for history
altogether).
Is not a set of things or even a set of statements,
but rather a set of relations: it is „the general
system of the formation and transformation of
statements.‟

9. ARCHEOLOGICAL
Seeks to describe discourses in the
conditions of their emergence and
transformation rather than in their deeper,
hidden meaning, their propositional or
logical content, or their expression of an
individual or collective psychology.

10. GENEALOGICAL
An attempt to consider the origins of
systems of knowledge, and to analyze
discourses.
Attempts to reveal the discontinuities and
breaks in a discourse, to focus on the
specific rather than on the general.

11. ARCHEOLOGICALGENEALOGICAL
APPROACH
Archeology is concerned more on finding
out the resemblances, similarities, patterns
and continuities in the history of social
institutions; genealogy, on the other hand,
puts emphasis more on the dissimilarities,
the “loose ends”, discontinuities or the
“break”/disruption that occur all along.

12. DIVORCE BILL
Five grounds for filing a petition for Divorce:
(1) The petitioner has been separated de facto from
his or her spouse for at least five years at the time
of the filing of the petition and the reconciliation
is highly improbable;
(2) The petitioner has been legally separated from
his or her spouse for at least two years at the time
of the filing of the petition and
reconciliation is
highly improbable;

13. (3) When any of the grounds for legal
separation under paragraph . . . . . .
(4) When one or both spouses are
psychologically incapacitated to comply with
the essential marital obligations;
(5) When the spouses suffer from irreconcilable
differences that have caused the irreparable
breakdown of the marriage.

14. Article 55. (A). A petition for legal separation may be
filed on any of the following grounds:
(1) Repeated physical violence or grossly abusive
conduct directed against the petitioner, a common
child, or a child of the petitioner.
(2) Physical violence or moral pressure to compel the
petitioner to change religious or political affiliation.
(3) Attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the
petitioner, a common child, or a child of the
petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance in
such corruption or inducement.
(4) Final judgment sentencing the respondent to
imprisonment of more than six years, even if
pardoned.

15. (5) Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism of the
respondent.
(6) Lesbianism or homosexuality of the respondent.
(7) Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent
bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or
abroad.
(8) Sexual infidelity or perversion.
(9) Abandonment by the respondent against life of the
petitioner.
(10) Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without
justifiable cause for more than one year.
For purpose of this Article, the term “child” shall
include a child by nature or by adoption.

16. Article 56. The petition for legal separation
or DIVORCE shall be denied on any of the
following ground:
(1) When the aggrieved party has condoned the
offense or act complained of;
(2) Where the aggrieved party has consented to
the commission of the offense or act
complained of;
(3) Where there is connivance between the
parties in the commission of the offense or
act constituting the ground for legal
separation or DIVORCE;

17. (4) Where both parties have given ground for
legal separation;
(5) Where there is collusion between the parties
to obtain the decree of legal separation or
DIVORCE;
(6) Where the action is barred by prescription.

18. HISTORY
Philippine society generally frowns
upon and discourages marital break-ups
and so provides cultural and legal
safeguards to preserve marital relations.

19. Women are traditionally regarded as
primarily responsible for making the
marriage work and are expected to
sacrifice everything to preserve the
marriage and the solidarity of the
family.

20. The sheer number of petitions that
have been filed since 1988 for the
declaration of the nullity of the
marriage under Article 36 of the Family
Code shows that there are just too
many couples who are desperate to get
out of failed marriages.

21. Official figures in 2009 showed that
nineteen women were victims of
marital violence everyday. Among the
different forms of violence and abuse
against women committed in 2009, wife
battery ranked highest at 6,783 or 72%
according to the Philippine National
Police.

22. The Department of Social Welfare and
Development likewise recorded marital
violence as highest among different
forms of violence against women at
1,933.

23. The bill retains the existing remedies of
legal separation, declaration of nullity of
the marriage and annulment and only adds
divorce as one more remedy. Couples may
choose from these remedies depending on
their situation, religious beliefs, cultural
sensibilities, needs and emotional state.

24. Divorce could actually provide
protection to battered women and their
children from further violence and
abuse.

25. SYNTHESIS
Archeological Method is an outgrowth of the
use of history of concepts. This method is
concerned with the conceptual structures
subtending the reality.
Genealogical Method can be understood in terms
of his desire to write histories of present.
Foucault simply identifies genealogy with history
of the present specifically concerned with the
complex casual antecedents of a socio-intellectual
reality.

26. (1) women are traditionally regarded as primarily
responsible for making the marriage work and are
expected to sacrifice everything to preserve the
marriage and the solidarity of the family.
(2) Some are not prepared to handle the
intricacies of the married life.
(3) That law will put an end to the creative efforts
played daily in courtrooms across the country to
accommodate a wide range of cases in order to
prove “psychological incapacity.”

27. (4) In the beginning of the 16th century, before the
Spanish colonial rule, absolute divorce was widely
practiced among ancestral tribes such as Tagbanwas of
Palawan, the Gadangs of Nueva Vizcaya, the Sagadas
and Igorots of the Cordilleras, and the Manobos, B‟laans
and Moslems of the Visayas and Mindanao islands.
(5) Divorce was also available during the American
Period, starting from 1917 and during the Japanese
occupation and after, until 1950.

28. Divorce may be resorted to by
individuals to achieve peace of mind
and facilitate their pursuit of the full
human development.