Family Relations

Title I: Marriage
Chapter 1: Requisites of Marriage

Contracting Parties Must be of Different Sex

Falcis v. Civil Registrar General, G.R. No. 217910

Separate Opinions
September 3, 2019

Facts: [Same as Arlyce’s digest of the Decision, maybe you can consider including these
Separate Opinions as an addendum thereto]

Doctrine: This case is not doctrinal. Rather, in the words of J. Jardeleza, this case
“presents a cautionary tale of how not to prove a fundamental right in the context of
public interest litigation.”

Peralta, J.
Concurring Opinion

Issue 1: Was there an actual case or controversy? No.

Issue 2: Did Falcis have standing? No.

Held:

(1) There is no actual case or controversy ripe for judicial determination. Falcis failed to
show that he would be directly injured by Arts. 1 and 2 of the Family Code, despite their
preclusion of same-sex marriages. In fact, Falcis was not even seeking marriage for
himself.

(2) Falcis has not suffered any direct and substantial injury. He has failed to show that
he was denied some personal right or privilege to which he was lawfully entitled, and
that he has a substantial interest in the suit. Prudential considerations should caution
the Court from having to accept and decide each and every case presented to it just
because the questions raised may be interesting, novel or challenging. There is a time for
coffee table discussions of exotic ideas, but the Court does not sit to do such discourse. In
undertaking judicial review, it decides in accordance with the Constitution issues that
have particular relevance and application to actual facts and circumstances, not
imagined or anticipated situations.

Other Matters:

This matter is best left to the political departments, and is not for the
Court to decide. The legislature must be given space to do its job of determining
policies as an aspect of the democratic process. As Justice Santiago M. Kapunan has
noted, “it is equally of paramount public concern, certainly paramount to the survival
of democracy, that acts of other branches of government are accorded due respect by
this Court. Decisions cannot be detached from societal realities. To society, the framers
of the Constitution, and the people who have ratified it, there is no indication that they
understood marriage to be other than the union between people of the opposite sex. This
has been the traditional, history-bound understanding of marriage in the Philippine
setting. Thus, if a radical departure from this commonly understood notion is to be had,
the same has to be decreed by Congress and the President, and not imposed by judicial
fiat. Debates about policy on matters like this are for the political departments, as elected
representatives of the people, to decide on.

Jardeleza, J.
Concurring Opinion (Joined by Caguioa, J.)

Issue 1: Was the case subject to judicial review? No.

Issue 2: Did Falcis have standing? No.
Issue 3: Was the direct resort to the Supreme Court warranted? No.

Held:

(1) There is an actual case or controversy when the case is ripe for determination, not
conjectural or anticipatory. There must be a conflict of legal rights or an assertion of
opposite legal claims which can be resolved on the basis of laws and jurisprudence. On
its face, the petition presents a hypothetical and contingent event which is hinged on
Falcis’ future plan of settling down with a person of the same sex.

(2) Again, Falcis has neither attempted to marry a same-sex partner nor was prevented
by the State from doing so. He was not even in any long-term, monogamous same-sex
relationship. In an attempt to remedy this defect, Falcis introduced the petition-in-
intervention of the LGBTS Church (as he acted as counsel therefor), which claimed to
intervene on behalf of its members. However, a petition-in-intervention cannot create an
actual controversy for the main petition — the cause of action must be made out by the
allegations of the petition without the aid of any other pleading. Furthermore, LGBTS
Church failed not only to satisfy the elements for maintaining third-party standing, but
also to show that Arts. 1 and 2 of the Family Code injures it and its members.

(3) The invocation of transcendental importance cannot justify direct resort to the
Supreme Court because it only dispenses with the requirement of locus standi — that is,
it does not override the requirements of an actual case or controversy, which is a
condition precedent for the exercise of judicial power. Thus, the decision to bring the
case directly before the Supreme Court is unwarranted and constitutes ground for the
outright dismissal of the petition.

Other Matters:
 There is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage under
Philippine law. Fundamental rights are those which are enumerated in the Bill of
Rights of the Constitution, as well as those unenumerated rights which have been
recognized in jurisprudence. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the SCOTUS considered not only
the ancient history of marriage, but also its development through time. However, there,
the SCOTUS did not receive and evaluate evidence for the first time on appeal, given that
the plaintiffs instituted original actions in their respective Federal District Courts, which
conducted their own trials and hearings. This is not the case in Falcis. The claim that
Arts. 1 and 2 of the Family Code violate due process and the guarantee of equal
protection of the laws is conflated, given that there is simply no basis for treating same-
sex couples as a separate class. Thus, due to a lack of evidence, the Supreme Court, as it
did in Ang Ladlad v. COMELEC in 2010, refrained from holding that same-sex couples
stand as a separate class.