A Quiet Day in the Senate: Family Code Amendments and A1H1 Vaccination

September 9, 2010

Thursdays are usually quiet in the Senate. It is not a session day, but there are hearings in the morning and the afternoon.

I had two things going on that day. One was the  hearing I chaired on the Committee on Women, Youth and Family Relations with respect to the amendment of various provisions of the Family Code.

Atty. Mel Sta. Maria,  a Professor in the Ateneo Law School,  shared his expertise on Family law.

My hearings are usually quiet. Especially when we dissect provisions of the law, it can get a bit  legalistic, perhaps boring for some.  But Family law, is a very interesting subject matter because it defines our rights as persons and  our relationships with each other – marriages, parent and child relations, siblings etc. It was one of my favorite subjects as a law student. So revisiting it now as a law maker, was something else.  I didn’t have the same nervousness and apprehensions I did as a student or someone taking the bar exam. It was actually  fun,  discussing the various provisions of the law, analyzing their flaws, going through the various views of legal luminaries,  and considering the possible amendments.

Some of the provision of the Family Code that we reviewed were:

– Art. 73. On the right of a spouse to exercise any legitimate profession.

– Art. 63. The name a married woman may use

– Art. 111. The right of a spouse to encumber their exclusive party.

– Art. 236. Liability of the parents for damages caused by their children between 18 and 21 who live with them.

-Art 26. Capacity of a Filipino to remarry if her foreign spouse obtains a divorce.

-Art 75. Establishing the property regime, when there is no marriage settlement or it is void.

We had a lively discussion on all of the above provisions. We suspended the hearing until further notice .

In the room across the hall,   we had another activity going on… the free vaccination against AH1NI for senate employees and selected groups, a joint project of my office and the Department of Health.