House bill seeks to criminalize sexual infidelity | News | GMA News Online

See - House bill seeks to criminalize sexual infidelity | News | GMA News Online



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Lawmakers are seeking to amend provisions in the Revised Penal Code on adultery and concubinage to treat sexual infidelity equally under the law.

House Bill 6010 aims to put more weight into the punishment for concubinage. Its authors, Magdalo partylist Reps. Francisco Ashley Acedillo and Gary Alejano, said the provisions are discriminatory against women.

Under the bill, Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code, which penalizes adultery, will instead punish "marital infidelity" committed by either the husband or the wife.

It also seeks to change the word "concubinage" in Article 334 of the RPC to "maintaining a paramour".

Under the Revised Penal Code, adultery is "committed by any married woman who shall have sexual intercourse with a man not her husband and by a man who has carnal knowledge of her, knowing her to be married, even if the marriage be subsequently declared void."

Meanwhile, a man may be charged with concubinage for keeping a mistress, either "in the conjugal dwelling" or in another place, or has sexual intercourse "under scandalous circumstances."

Each sexual intercourse counts as a crime of adultery, while concubinage is considered "a continuing crime."

"Despite laws promoting equality between men and women, Filipino women continue to suffer from various forms of inequalities and discrimination. And our laws on Adultery and Concubinage under the Revised Penal Code are such an example. Both seek to punish marital infidelity of spouses but provides higher burden on wives than the husbands," Acedillo said.

For his part, Alejano said the current provisions contradict the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, of which the Philippines is a signatory.

It requires the state to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs, and practices that are deemed discriminatory against women.

Adultery is punishable by imprisonment of two years and four months up to six years, while a man proven guilty of concubinage faces imprisonment of six months and one day to four years and two months.

The mistress, meanwhile, gets the penalty of destierro, or prohibition from residing "within the radius of 25 kilometers from the actual residence of the accused for a specified length of time."
— Aica Dioquino/JDS, GMA News. 

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