GR No.

47101 April 25, 1941

GODOFREDO BUCCAT, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
LUIDA MANGON DE BUCCAT, defendant-appellee.

Mr. Feliciano Leviste, Mr. Tomas P. Panganiban and Mrs. Sotera N. Megia on behalf of the appellant.
Doña Luida Mangonon de Buccat in her own representation.

HORRILLENO, J .:

This matter has been raised to this Superiority by the Court of First Instance of Baguio, since it only raises a purely
legal question.

On March 20, 1939, the plaintiff filed the case, in which the defendant did not appear, despite having been duly
summoned. Therefore, allowing the plaintiff to present his evidence, the lower court ruled the matter in favor of the
defendant. Hence this appeal.

The plaintiff requests the annulment of his marriage with the defendant Luida Mangonon de Buccat on November 26,
1938, in the City of Baguio, on the grounds that, in consenting to said marriage, he did so because the defendant had
assured him that she was virgin.

The following facts emerge from the lower court's decision:

The plaintiff met the defendant in March 1938. After several interviews, both became engaged on September 19 of
the same year. On November 26 of the same year, the plaintiff married the defendant in the Catholic cathedral of
Baguio City. After living together maritally for eighty-nine days, the defendant gave birth to a nine-month-old child on
February 23, 1939. As a result of this event, the plaintiff abandoned the defendant and did not return to marital life
with she.

We see no reason to reverse the judgment appealed from. Indeed, the allegation of the plaintiff and appellant that he
had not even suspected the pregnant state of the defendant, being, as has been proven, in a very advanced
pregnant condition, is implausible. Therefore, there is no place to estimate the fraud that the appellant speaks
of. What he alleges in the sense that it is not uncommon to find people with a developed abdomen, seems to us to be
childish to deserve our consideration, all the more so since the plaintiff was a first-year law student.

Marriage is a most sacred institution: it is the foundation on which society rests. To annul it, clear and reliable
evidence is necessary. In this matter there is no such evidence.

Finding the appealed sentence adjusted to law, it must be confirmed, as we hereby confirm, in all its parts, with the
costs to the appellant. So it is ordered.

Avanceña, Pres., Imperial, Diaz and Laurel, MM., are satisfied.