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The Absolute Divorce Bill was approved by the House of Representatives in May 2024 and is currently languishing in the Senate
Claim: A May 2025 Facebook video says a bill legalizing divorce in the Philippines has been approved.
Rating: MISSING CONTEXT
Why we fact-checked this: The video containing the claim was posted by “KABET.PH” on May 31. It has been viewed over 4 million times, with over 18,000 reactions and over 2,100 comments.
The video shows House Deputy Speaker Kristine Singson-Meehan at the speaker’s podium in the Batasang Pambansa saying, “With 126 votes in the affirmative, 109 in the negative, and 20 abstentions, House Bill No. 9349 is approved on third and final reading.” The caption of the Facebook video said, “Aprubado na… (It has already been approved).”
House Bill 9349 is also referred to as An Act Reinstituting Absolute Divorce as an Alternative Mode for the Dissolution of Marriage, or simply the Absolute Divorce Bill. The bill, if signed by the President into law, permits couples to end their marriages through absolute divorce.
In the comments section of the video, a number of Facebook users inaccurately referred to the Absolute Divorce Bill as a “law.”
The facts: While the clip is true and factual, the clip featured in the post was not taken recently. Instead, it happened on May 22, 2024, which the post failed to indicate in any part of the post, making it appear as if it happened recently.
On May 22, 2024, the House of Representatives approved the Absolute Divorce Bill on third and final reading with 131 affirmative votes, 109 negative votes, and 20 abstentions. The earlier announcement, as seen and heard in the video, said there were 126 affirmative votes.
According to an ABS-CBN news article, a report signed by House Secretary General Reginald Velasco informed House members on the same day that “actual results” show 131 affirmative votes. On May 23, 2024, Velasco explained that the correction was due to a “purely administrative error.”
Not yet a law: Although the Absolute Divorce Bill was approved by the House of Representatives in 2024 during the 19th Congress, it is still several steps away from being signed into law. The approval just means that the final version of the bill, after several revisions, was voted on by the majority of the members of the House.
Lawmaking process: For the Absolute Divorce Bill to be signed into law, the Senate has to go through the same process that the House went through to approve the bill.
The timeline: In May 2024, after the Absolute Divorce Bill was approved by the House, Senator Jinggoy Estrada said that he and other senators — Francis Tolentino, Joel Villanueva, and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa — were opposed to the bill, according to an ABS-CBN report.
On June 11, 2024, the bill was received by the Senate, according to the House of Representatives website.
In July 2024, Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero said the Absolute Divorce Bill was not among the Senate’s priorities, according to a Philippine News Agency report. He mentioned that the bill was pending in plenary or the second reading.
If the divorce bill does not become law during the 19th Congress, it automatically dies. For it to become law, it has to be refiled by a lawmaker — representative or senator — during the 20th Congress, and go through the entire process again.
In May 2025, Senator Risa Hontiveros vowed to refile the divorce bill in the 20th Congress if it does not proceed during the 19th Congress, which will expire in June 2025, according to an ABS-CBN news report. – Laurice Angeles/Rappler
Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.
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