almilor case

Hatima Yasin v Sharia District Court G.R. No. 94986 February 23, 1995 (Muslim
Divorce/Surname)
Remo v Hon.Sec.of Foreign Affairs
ABSOLUTE COMMUNITY OF PROPERTY (ACP)
EXCLUSIVE PROPERTIES
CONJUGAL PROPERTY GAINS (CPG)
Grounds for judicial separation of property
Article 147 and 148 Marriages Covered
Ordinary rules on co-ownership

Pulido Case

Summary

In the leading case of Pulido v. People, G.R. No. 220149, 27 July 2021, Hernando,
J., the SC en banc exonerated the accused from criminal liability for bigamy when
during the pendency of the bigamy case, a judicial declaration of nullity of the
first marriage was entered. Previous decisions had held that a person who contracts
a second marriage without a prior court declaration of nullity of his first
marriage was liable for bigamy even if the first marriage was subsequently declared
void by a court. The SC held in Pulido that the requirement of a prior judicial
declaration of nullity under Article 40 of the Family Code, which is for purposes
only of remarriage, should not have been extended to criminal cases.

Case law prior to Pulido

The crime of bigamy is committed by any person who shall contract a second or
subsequent marriage while validly married to another. (See Article 349, Revised
Penal Code).

Consider this hypothetical: Horace contracted marriage with Annika. Horace then
filed a petition for declaration of nullity of his marriage to Annika on the ground
of absence of a marriage license. While this petition was pending, Horace
contracted a second marriage with Blondie. When Annika learned of this, she filed
a criminal complaint with the prosecutor for bigamy against Horace. The
information for bigamy against Horace was subsequently filed in court.

(a) Horace filed a motion for suspension of the criminal case on the ground that
the marriage nullification case presented a prejudicial question. Should the
motion be granted?

(b) Assume that the motion was not granted. During the pendency of the criminal
case, judgment was entered declaring the marriage between Horace and Annika as void
because of the absence of a marriage license. Will the judgment exonerate Horace
from criminal liability?

Prior to Pulido, the answer to (a) was in the negative. The petition for
declaration of nullity of marriage will not pose a prejudicial question since, as
will be discussed in the answer to (b), Horace can still be convicted of bigamy
even if his prior marriage to Annika was later nullified.

The answer to (b) was also in the negative. In a line of cases, the Supreme Court
has held that a spouse cannot take the law into his own hands and contract marriage
without a previous judicial declaration of nullity of the prior marriage. “Persons
intending to contract a second marriage must first secure a judicial declaration of
nullity of their first marriage. If they proceed with the second marriage without
the judicial declaration, they are guilty of bigamy regardless of evidence of the
nullity of the first marriage.” (See Vitangcol v. People, 780 SCRA 598 [2016]).
This holding was based on Article 40 of the Family Code which provides that “[t]he
absolute nullity of a previous marriage may be invoked for purposes of remarriage
on the basis solely of a final judgment declaring such previous marriage void.”

The Pulido case

In Pulido, the petitioner contracted marriage with a woman whom we shall refer to
as W1. Subsequently, petitioner contracted marriage with another woman, W2.
Stung by this betrayal, W1 filed a complaint for bigamy against the petitioner. The
petitioner’s defense was that his marriage with W1 was void because of the absence
of a marriage license. In accordance with the then case law, the petitioner was
however convicted by the RTC of Las Piñas City since there was no prior judicial
declaration of his marriage with W1 at the time he married W2. The Court of
Appeals affirmed the petitioner’s conviction and the case was elevated to the
Supreme Court. While the case was pending in the Supreme Court, a judgment was
entered by the RTC of Imus, Cavite, declaring the marriage between the petitioner
and W1 as void due to the absence of a marriage license.

With this development, the Supreme Court held that the petitioner should be
exonerated from criminal liability. The High Court stated that for bigamy to
arise, there must have been a prior valid marriage. The fact that the judicial
declaration of nullity was obtained after the accused had contracted the second
marriage will still not give rise to bigamy because a void marriage is inexistent
from the very beginning.

With respect to Article 40 of the Family Code, the Court held that its application
to a bigamy charge was not warranted. The Court held that by the express terms of
Article 40, the prior judicial declaration of nullity of the marriage is a
requirement only for purposes of remarriage and that Article 40 should not have
been construed as imposing a requirement for the accused to raise the defense of
nullity of the first marriage.

Thus, in the light of Pulido, the answer now to (b) of the hypothetical is that the
judgment of nullification will exonerate Horace from criminal liability for bigamy.

Effect of Pulido on prior rulings re prejudicial question

The doctrine laid down in Pulido will necessarily call for a revisit of previous
doctrines which held that a pending marriage nullification case will not pose a
prejudicial question in a bigamy case.

In light of Pulido, the answer to (a) of the hypothetical is that the motion for
suspension on the ground of prejudicial question should be granted. The resolution
of the issue of whether the prior marriage between Horace and W1 is valid is
determinative of whether the criminal case for bigamy will proceed.

It should be noted that by virtue of the 1 December 2000 amendments to the Rules of
Criminal Procedure, the civil case in order to pose a prejudicial question must
have been filed prior to the institution of the criminal case. Hence, if the civil
case for marriage nullification was filed after the criminal case had been
instituted, there will be no suspension of the criminal case on the ground of
prejudicial question.

In such a case, the remedy of the accused is to prove the nullity of his prior
marriage in the criminal case. Pulido held that a prior judicial declaration is
not the sole means of proving the nullity of the prior marriage. The accused may
collaterally attack the validity of the first marriage by introducing evidence, for
example, that no marriage license was obtained therein. The Court held that a
certification from the LCR that no record of a marriage license was found in its
record would cast reasonable doubt on the accused’s guilt.

Retroactive effect of Pulido

What about an accused who had been convicted of bigamy notwithstanding a judicial
declaration of nullity of his marriage? May he invoke the Pulido doctrine?

It is submitted that the accused may do so. It is axiomatic that a law should be
given retroactive effect if favorable to the accused. (Article 22, Revised Penal
Code). Judicial decisions favorable to an accused should be given retroactive
effect since such decisions form part of the law in accordance with Article 8 of
the Civil Code and so as not to infringe upon the constitutional right of the
accused to equal protection of the law. (Gumabon v. Director of Prisons, 37 SCRA
420 [1971]). In such a case, the accused may file a petition for habeas corpus to
obtain his release from prison.