One of the most tragic implementations of law has been to make all divorce illegal. The Philippines is the last country on earth (unless you consider the Vatican) where divorce is illegal. Divorce became more legal for very specific situations when the US forced the Philippines to become a US territory.

When the Japanese conquered the Philippines they made divorce legal in 1943. When the Americans came back, they reinstituted the strict divorce rules from prior to the Japanese takeover.

In 1950, the Philippines went back to the Spanish "no-divorce" standards.

The negative impact of that decision on the Philippine economy has been devastating.

People will be people and will do what people do despite the law. Nothing did more to create marital affairs than this single law. Of course you might be able to "buy" an annulment for a variety of reasons, but for the poor, the cost makes annulment prohibitive. It seems that only the wealthy can get out of a marriage.

This is still the situation today with little hope on the horizon, under current Philippine leadership, despite trends that want to upend the law from within the Philippine Congress.

To this day, I've never heard a logical defense of the arcane laws.

https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/776695-philippines-divorce-in-us/