G.R. No. 200233 JULY 15, 2015 LEONILA G. SANTIAGO, Petitioner, vs.

PEOPLE
OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondent.
FACTS
Santos Married Galang in 1974. After only 6 months of courtship, Santiago married Santos
in 1997. 4 Months after their solemnization, the couple was faced with an information for
bigamy. Santiago pleaded not guilty while her putative husband escaped the criminal suit.
Santiago was aware of Santos previous marriage although she claimed the opposite during
the proceedings.
Santiago asserted her affirmative defense that she could not be included as an accused in the
crime of bigamy, because she had been under the belief that Santos was still single when
they got married. She also averred that for there to be a conviction for bigamy, his second
marriage to her should be proven valid by the prosecution; but in this case, she argued that
their marriage was void due to the lack of a marriage license.
After a perusal of the records, it is clear that the marriage between petitioner and Santos took
place without a marriage license. The absence of this requirement is purportedly explained in
their Certificate of Marriage, which reveals that their union was celebrated under Article 34
of the Family Code. However she claims she met Santos in 1993 and Santiago only
occasionally visited her then. The couple had only known each other for 4 years.
Santiago and Santos, however, reflected the exact opposite of this demonstrable fact.
Although the records do not show that they submitted an affidavit of cohabitation as required
by Article 34 of the Family Code, it appears that the two of them lied before the solemnizing
officer and misrepresented that they had actually cohabited for at least five years before they
married each other. Unfortunately, subsequent to this lie was the issuance of the Certificate
of Marriage,  in which the solemnizing officer stated under oath that no marriage license was
necessary, because the marriage was solemnized under Article 34 of the Family Code.

ISSUE
WON Santiago’s Marriage with Santos is valid.
WON Santiago is guilty of Bigamy

HELD
The Marriage is valid. In the case at bar, we cannot countenance petitioner's illegal acts of
feigning a marriage and, in the same breath, adjudge her innocent of the crime. For us, to do
so would only make a mockery of the sanctity of marriage.
Santiago is guilty of Bigamy as an accomplice, she married Santos while knowing full well
that they had not yet complied with the five-year cohabitation requirement under Article 34
of the Family Code.

LEGAL PRINCIPLES
Art. 34. No license shall be necessary for the marriage of a man and a woman who have
lived together as husband and wife for at least five years and without any legal impediment
to marry each other. The contracting parties shall state the foregoing facts in an affidavit
before any person authorized by law to administer oaths. The solemnizing officer shall also
state under oath that he ascertained the qualifications of the contracting parties are found no
legal impediment to the marriage.
We chastise this deceptive scheme that hides what is basically a bigamous and illicit
marriage in an effort to escape criminal prosecution. Our penal laws on marriage, such as
bigamy, punish an individual's deliberate disregard of the permanent and sacrosanct
character of this special bond between spouses. In Tenebro v. Court of Appeals, we had
the occasion to emphasize that the State's penal laws on bigamy should not be rendered
nugatory by allowing individuals "to deliberately ensure that each marital contract be flawed
in some manner, and to thus escape the consequences of contracting multiple marriages,
while beguiling throngs of hapless women with the promise of futurity and commitment."
The court also compared this case to People v De Lara:
Noticeably, Domingo de Lara did not cause the falsification of public documents in order to
contract a second marriage. In contrast, petitioner and Santos fraudulently secured a
Certificate of Marriage, and petitioner later used this blatantly illicit act as basis for seeking
her exculpation. Therefore, unlike our treatment of the accused in De Lara, this Court cannot
regard petitioner herein as innocent of the crime.
 G.R. No. 189607 RENATO A. CASTILLO, Petitioner, vs. LEA P. DE LEON
CASTILLO, Respondent.

FACTS

Lea married Benjamin in 1972. She then married Renato in 1979.

In 2001 Renato filed a petition for declaration of nullity of marriage on account of Lea’s
subsisting marriage to Benjamin. Lea contends that her marriage to bautista was null and
void as they had not secured a marriage license and neither of them was a member of the
denomination to which the solemnizing officer belonged.
In 2002, Lea filed an action to declare her marriage to Benjamin Void. RTC of Paranaque
granted this suit and issued a Certificate of Finality in 2003, deeming that decision final and
executory.
Renato contends that whether or not the first marriage of the respondent was valid and
regardless of the fact that she managed to obtain a judicial declaration of nullity in 2003, at a
the time that she entered into marriage with him, her Lea’s previous marriage with Benjamin
was valid and subsisting. RTC rules Renato’s marriage to Lea null and void ab initio based
on a bigamous marriage. CA reverses this ruling with respect to the declaration of nullity that
Lea obtained.

ISSUE
WON Lea’s second marriage (with Renato) was void ab initio in view of her then subsisting
marriage with Benjamin.

HELD
Lea’s marriage with Renato is valid.
The subsequent marriage of Lea to Renato is valid in view of the invalidity of her first
marriage to Bautista because of the absence of a marriage license. That there was no judicial
declaration that the first marriage was void ab initio before the second marriage was
contracted is immaterial as this is not a requirement under the Civil Code. Nonetheless, the
subsequent Decision of the RTC of Parañaque City declaring the nullity of Lea's first
marriage only serves to strengthen the conclusion that her subsequent marriage to Renato is
valid.
LEGAL PRINCIPLE

The validity of a marriage and all its incidents must be determined in accordance with the
law in effect at the time of its celebration. In this case, the law in force at the time Lea
contracted both marriages was the Civil Code. The children of the parties were also born
while the Civil Code was in effect i.e. in 1979, 1981, and 1985. Hence, the Court must
resolve this case using the provisions under the Civil Code on void marriages, in particular,
Articles 80, 81, 82, and 83 (first paragraph); and those on voidable marriages are Articles 83
(second paragraph), 85 and 86.

Under the Civil Code, a void marriage differs from a voidable marriage in the following
ways: (1) a void marriage is nonexistent - i.e., there was no marriage from the beginning -
while in a voidable marriage, the marriage is valid until annulled by a competent court; (2) a
void marriage cannot be ratified, while a voidable marriage can be ratified by cohabitation;
(3) being nonexistent, a void marriage can be collaterally attacked, while a voidable marriage
cannot be collaterally attacked; (4) in a void marriage, there is no conjugal partnership and
the offspring are natural children by legal fiction, while in voidable marriage there is
conjugal partnership and the children conceived before the decree of annulment are
considered legitimate; and (5) "in a void marriage no judicial decree to establish the
invalidity is necessary," while in a voidable marriage there must be a judicial decree.

Contrasted with:

Art. 35. The following marriages shall be void from the beginning:

(1) Those contracted by any party below eighteen years of age even with the consent of
parents or guardians;

(2) Those solemnized by any person not legally authorized to perform marriages unless such
marriages were contracted with either or both parties believing in good faith that the
solemnizing officer had the legal authority to do so;

(3) Those solemnized without license, except those covered the preceding Chapter;

(4) Those bigamous or polygamous marriages not failing under Article 41;

(5) Those contracted through mistake of one contracting party as to the identity of the other;
and

(6) Those subsequent marriages that are void under Article 53.
G.R. No. 166357 January 14, 2015 VALERIO E. KALAW, Petitioner, vs. MA. ELENA
FERNANDEZ, Respondent.

FACTS
Kalaw filed a petition for declaration of nullity of marriage on the grounds of psychological
incapacity. Kalaw presented the testimonies of two expert witnesses that Fernandez, his then-
wife, was psychologically incapacitated on account of her constant visits to the beauty parlor,
sexual infidelity, addiction to mahjong and general neglect for the needs of their children as
well as failure to fulfill her duties as a spouse. Expert witnesses cite Fernandez background,
history and psychological profile as proof of her incapacity.
The court, sitting en banc had previously denied the petitioners request finding a lack of
factual basis for the conclusion of psychological incapacity. However the petitioner Kalaw
filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court granted, and they adjudicate the case as a
special division.

ISSUE
WON the court may grant the declaration of nullity of marriage on the grounds of
psychological incapacity.

HELD
Yes. Fernandez, meeting the elements of juridical antecedence, gravity and incurability was
psychologically incapacitated.
Court held that Her willful exposure of her children to her gambling addiction constituted
grave neglect of her duties.
The court also held the importance of giving weight to expert testimony rendered in cases of
declaration of the nullity of marriages, for by the very nature of Article 36 of the Family
Code.
The court further stressed that the ruling in previous Republic v. CA turned out to be rigid,
such that their application to every instance practically condemned the petitions for
declaration of nullity to the fate of certain rejection. But Article 36 of the Family Code must
not be so strictly and too literally read and applied given the clear intendment of the drafters
to adopt its enacted version of "less specificity" obviously to enable "some resiliency in its
application." Instead, every court should approach the issue of nullity "not on the basis of a
priori assumptions, predilections or generalizations, but according to its own facts" in
recognition of the verity that no case would be on "all fours" with the next one in the field of
psychological incapacity as a ground for the nullity of marriage; hence, every "trial judge
must take pains in examining the factual milieu and the appellate court must, as much as
possible, avoid substituting its own judgment for that of the trial court."

LEGAL PRINCIPLE

Art. 36. A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was
psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage,
shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization.
(As amended by Executive Order 227)