A new House of Representatives bill, which would give equality in the Revised Penal Code for those involved in adultery and concubinage, should move forward this week.
House Bill HB 6010 will alter Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code, essentially making adultery punishable to both sexes under the new law.
Adultery in the Philippines is currently defined as when a married woman has sexual intercourse with a man, not her husband. The man also has carnal knowledge of her, knowing her to be married, even if the marriage is subsequently declared void.
A party-list official says that despite laws promoting equality between men and women, the Philippines basically continues to write laws favouring men.
The Philippines has a law against men who commit adultery. That law coms under Article 334 of the Revised Penal Code. This law says that a husband who commits adultery and keeps a mistress in the conjugal dwelling, or has sexual intercourse, under scandalous circumstances, with a woman who is not his wife, or cohabits with her in any other place, has in fact broken the law of concubinage.
The new law will take adultery and change the wording to “Marital Infidelity” – with the concubinage law using the terminology “Maintaining a Paramour.”
A Paramour by definition is “any person who cohabits with a married person of either sex under circumstances where they assume and exercise toward each other the rights and privileges, which properly belong to persons married to each other.”
If a complaint is filed by the offended party the crime will move forward into the prosecution stage if the evidence is found factual.
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