WHEN court stenographer Anifeth Dandan married her husband in the ’90s, she thought she would settle down to a quiet, contented life.
Instead, Dandan found that the man of her dreams turned out to be a nightmare.
Three years into their marriage, her husband was jailed after killing a man during a drinking binge.
Dandan later learned that her husband had relationships with other women while detained in the Cebu City Jail.
“The time has come for me to give up,” Dandan told Cebu Daily News.
She filed for declaration of nullity of marriage in 2010, and spent P70,000 so far for the litigation, a case pending to this day.
The Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Cebu City recorded 321 cases of nullity and annulment of marriage in 2011.
The number went down slightly from year-ago levels of 382 cases in 2010.
RTC Judge Olegario Sarmiento of Branch 24 explained that marriages remain valid until annulled by the court. He said nullity of marriage means that the “marriage is null and void from the beginning, as if no marriage had happened at all.”
In an annulment, on the other, the marriage was valid at the start. Sarmiento, who is assigned to a family court or a special venue for cases involving families and children, said couples usually want to end their marriage due to financial constraints, infidelity and domestic violence.
Sarmiento said he granted petitions in 60 to 80 percent of the cases he handled.
Grounds for nullifying a union include arranged marriages where a partner is below 18 years old (even with parental consent), and psychological incapacity to fulfill the obligations of marriage.
Or the person officiating the wedding isn’t authorized to do so or the wedding is solemnized without marriage license.
Sarmiento said spouses whose marriages are annulled by the Church but not in court cannot remarry and vice versa.
He said those whose annulment was granted in court can only remarry in a civil ceremony.
Those whose civil marriage has been annulled can also avail of the sacrament of matrimony of the Church but the process of remarrying for Catholics is long .
Msgr. Esteban Binghay, a canon lawyer, said people should choose their partners well.
“Don’t just say ‘yes’; fulfill what your ‘yes’ entails. Each individual has his own own weakness,” he said.
Binghay, one of the arbiters of Cebu’s matrimonial tribunal, said a Church official in Manila assigned to review the rulings of marriage courts will have the final say on annulment cases. /Ador Vincent Mayol, Reporter