SC clarifies its ruling did not ease annulment rules

The Supreme Court. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The Supreme Court did not abandon its doctrine on psychological incapacity as basis for the annulment of marriages, the high tribunal’s spokesman said.

In a press briefing Tuesday, lawyer Theodore Te said the high court did not relax or ease the interpretation of the rules, guidelines and procedures for the declaration of nullity of marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code.

The high court’s Special First Division recently released a resolution dated Jan. 24 that reversed a 2011 decision disallowing the annulment of the marriage of a couple who had been living apart for 20 years and who had accused each other of being psychologically incapacitated.

Te said the division “took a more liberal view” of the evidence presented by the couple before the Pasig City Regional Trial Court, which annulled the marriage on the basis of the psychological incapacity of both the husband and wife.

“The dispositive portion of the [January 2015] resolution did not state that the Supreme Court was abandoning its precedents on psychological incapacity as a ground for declaring marriages null and void under the Family Code, only that the motion for reconsideration was granted and the particular marriage, based on the evidence presented and appreciated, is declared null and void,” he explained.

Infidelity

The resolution took note of the experts, including psychologists and a canon lawyer, who were presented by the husband and wife during the RTC

hearings.

In the case, the husband, who was already living with and had children with another woman, sought annulment of his marriage with his legal wife, accusing her of infidelity and neglecting their children. The wife opposed the suit, saying her husband was a womanizer, alcoholic, drug dependent and wife-beater. The RTC granted the annulment but the Court of Appeals overturned it.

In 2011, the Supreme Court, agreeing with the appeals tribunal, ruled that there was acrimony between, and probably infidelity by, both parties, but that these were not enough to void the marriage due to psychological incapacity.

Literal reading of evidence

Te noted that the January 2015 resolution was issued by a division and could not modify the decisions of the en banc or the entire court when it interpreted the application of Article 36 in the cases of Santos v Court of Appeals (1995), Republic v Court of Appeals (1997, also known as the Molina case), and Ngo Te v Yu-Te (1998).

“The court did not overturn, overrule or even reconsider the way it reads the guidelines set forth in the declaration of nullity in Molina, Santos, Ngo Te and subsequent cases. The court did take a liberal reading of the evidence presented, which applies in this particular case. And I think as lawyers would know, of course, this case can be used in argue further cases but until such time that the court en banc says we are abandoning a doctrine, we cannot presume that the court is [doing so],” he explained.

The writer of the 2011 decision, Justice Mariano del Castillo, dissented in the January 2015 resolution, which was written by Justice Lucas Bersamin and concurred by Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Jose Perez and Marvic Leonen.

Not based on facts

In his dissent, De Castillo insisted that the RTC ruling was “without any indication of which pieces of evidence it found convincing, reliable, and overwhelming, much less a discussion of how these evidence tend to prove the existence or non-existence of psychological incapacity–ergo, without factual findings whatsoever.”

He said RTC rulings on psychological incapacity should be final and binding on the appellate courts only “when such ruling is based on the facts and on the opinion of the experts,” adding, “I believe that the trial court’s decision in this case was not based on facts, but solely on the opinion of the experts. Such blind reliance by the trial court was an abdication of its duty to go over the evidence for itself.”