DIVORCE BILL ON A VALENTINE?

by Mygz Mansueto On Valentine season, it is very timely to reflect on the divorce bill (HB 1799) that is now served both hot (pro) and chilling (anti) on the menu table of Philippine congress after the RH. I was recently invited to attend a seminar dubbed as Love Forum 2013 organized by the CFC Singles for Christ Loon Chapter, with the cooperation of the Parish Youth Ministry (PYM) of the Our Lady of Light Parish in Loon. The resource speaker was the current parish priest of Loon, Fr. Jose Stelieto Ruyeras. The said forum was mostly attended by very young people at their teens. During the open forum, since I was love-struck by the wonderful words of the resource speaker, I had the occasion to formulate a very timely question that sets the mode of the forum, which can also reflect on the divorce bill issue. What seemed a Valentine theme turned out to be like a pre-Cana seminar due to its very serious and complicated, nevertheless very interesting topic on marriage and commitment! Thanks to the presence of the Provincial Psychologist of the Couples for Christ (CFC-Bohol) that served like a panelist who helped the participants with his wisdom learned through ages of counseling married couples. Courtship in our modern age has become easier through the aid of advanced technologies, such as, mobile text messaging and Facebook, among the others, by which finding a sweetheart becomes handy and instantaneous thing, and the magical 3-words I love you becomes a password to a womans heart, that if she returns an I love you, it automatically assumes the status as lovers or in a relationship. Finding a loved one becomes so easy through which lovers rush headlong towards teen pregnancy and untimely marriage (or worst, single motherhood)), and then later on seek for a divorce to find an instant solution to their accumulated problems or difficulties. Sadly, we become an easy come, easy go generation. I proposed that there should have been a free-trial stage in which prospective lovers exclusively date without a prior commitment of becoming ultimate lovers to avoid making unwanted mistakes in life. At the start, when the relationship is already loaded with problems, it is more likely that the relationship will also have a problematic ending. Divorce is a problematic ending since the couple was not able to keep the marriage vows they intend to keep for each other. Whats Till death do us part becomes only a song! In my own opinion, love may start from a simple physical (or sexual) attraction, then, it develops into a feeling or emotion. However, love can never be equated with a feeling or physical attraction. Love is something else from a different level that transcends even the emotions. Love is not a mere feeling, but a constant mutual understanding and respect, a life-long willed commitment and mature responsibility. Love entails sacrifices, selfgiving, and allowing oneself to be loved and cared for by the significant other. Above all, God the Almighty should be the center of the relationship. Girl-boy relationship also demands women empowerment and gender equality wherein both the boy and the girl have the right and dignity to initiate and show a feeling, and likewise, to opt out when the relationship failed to work out. Love is a most abused word, and it makes us fragile and vulnerable as a human being.

By the way, the love forum was hosted by our very own Miss Mary Grace Ramada of BISU-MC, the lovely English instructress from CTAS. Ms. Ramada claims shes one of the NBSB (No Boyfriend Since Birth) who had their family as their Valentine dates! Do you believe her? If that is the case, then, to all the charming gentlemen out there, win her heart and be her first, last, and only lover in her life. She absolutely cant wait for the love of her life to come. Happy Valentine to all!