Las Vegas style "quickee" or "speedy drive-thru divorces" will not be allowed in the proposed Absolute Divorce Act that was approved by the House Committee Population and Family Relations on Tuesday, March 21. This was bared by Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman, chairman of the technical working group (TWG) that had earlier produced the consolidated but still unnumbered substitute bill calling for absolute divorce in the current 19th Congress. Isabela 3rd district Rep. Ian Paul Dy chairs the committee that approved the landmark measure Tuesday. "The template of the substitute bill is my House Bill (HB) No. 78, which is almost a replica of the bill approved on third and final reading by the House of Representatives during the 17th Congress. The approval of the same bill during the 18th Congress was stalled by the pandemic," said Lagman. "While it is said that marriages are solemnized in heaven, the fact is some marriages plummet into hell because of human frailty and imperfections. The Divorce Act seeks to redeem couples, particularly the abused or abandoned wives, from infernal agony," added the veteran lawmaker. He then enumerated a few salient features of the panel-approved measure. "Quickie, notarial, email and other speedy drive-thru divorces are prohibited," he said. "There is a cooling-off period of 60 days after the filing of the divorce petition wherein the judge shall exert earnest efforts to reconcile the parties," Lagman noted. According to the Bciolano, a divorce petition will undergo a judicial process where proof of the cause for the divorce is established and that the marriage has completely collapsed without any possibility of reconciliation. He said the public prosecutor is mandated to conduct an investigation to assure that there is no collusion between the parties or whether one party coerced the other to file the divorce petition. "At any time during the proceedings, if the parties agree to reconcile, the petition is dismissed; Even after the issuance of an absolute divorce decree, when the parties decide to reconcile, the divorce decree shall be nullified," Lagman said. He said that, since absolute divorce is not a foreign or new concept to Filipinos, the title of the measure is reinstituting absolute divorce. Lagman insists that absolute divorce law is constitutional. "There was unanimity in the Constitutional Commission of 1987 where the Commissioners led by Fr. Joaquin Bernas, said that the Congress has the power to enact a divorce law." He futher said that the bill contains harsh penalties for those who collude to secure a divorce decree or of one spouse coercing the other to file for divorce. The penalties consist of an indivisible punishment of five years imprisonment and a sizeable fine, he said. "No decree of absolute divorce shall be based upon a stipulation of facts or a confession of judgment," he added.