By LITO RULONA Correspondent The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental slammed the proposed marriage dissolution law of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez before the 17th Congress, calling it a “bad and cruel solution for marital problems.” “Dissolution is worse than annulment. Kung annulment lang dunay basehanan based on the family code like void marriages. Kining dissolution walay rason, gusto ka lang makigbulag sa imong asawa or bana. It does not matter if the marriage is valid or not,” Msgr. Rey Monsanto, parish priest of San Isidro Labrador Parish in Barangay Kauswagan said in an interview. He said dissolution is like dissolving a couple’s marriage without any apparent reason. Under the religious Cannon Law there should be a declaration of nullity that right from the start the marriage is null and void. Under the proposed law, parties will be spared the painful process of annulment by allowing couples to jointly petition a court for the dissolution of their marriage. “Filing of the dissolution of marriage is like a petitioner acting as God. Every church marriage is being cared for by God. To avoid dissolution of marriage, the couple must be engaged in a longer period of time before any marriage to avoid any filing of dissolution move,” Monsanto said. In the bill’s explanatory part, the bill is not a divorce bill but merely seeks to free couples from an unhappy marriage. He also said should one of the spouses refuse the dissolution, the other spouse can still petition a court on the ground of unhappiness. Alvarez also said his bill will not undermine the institution of marriage and will in fact reinforce it because it will compel couples to work on keeping their marriages happy.