SC rules that guilty spouses cannot have their bigamous marriage nullified
The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that persons who knowingly marry a second person while still legally married to their first spouse cannot have their bigamous marriage nullified. Instead, only the injured spouse can ask the court to void it.
In a decision written by Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario, the SC En Banc denied the request of Filipino petitioner Maria Lina to have her second marriage nullified for being bigamous.
Lina, who had been working as a bank teller in Hong Kong, had been married to Chinese national Ho Kar Way on Dec. 13, 1989 before she began an affair with her Filipino client identified as Edwin.
After getting wooed by Edwin's "good intentions," Lina eventually resigned from her work in Hong Kong and returned to the Philippines after conceiving his child. They then tied the knot on Feb. 22, 2003.
Her first husband later obtained a divorce in Hong Kong that effectively dissolved their marriage.
After 14 years, however, Lina and Edwin decided to put an end to their marriage. Their children remained with Lina in the Philippines while Edwin provided them with financial support through his work overseas.
Lina then filed a petition before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Parañaque City to declare her marriage with Edwin void for the reason that it was "bigamous." She also requested that she could remarry again.
However, both the RTC and the Court of Appeals denied her petition as she "lacked legal standing because she had knowingly entered the bigamous union."
While Lina argued she was the only one who had the right to seek the nullity of the second because her first marriage was already dissolved, the SC stressed that "only the aggrieved or injured innocent spouse of either marriage may petition to declare the nullity of the subsequent marriage."
"In this case, Ho Kar Wai was the injured spouse in the prior subsisting marriage. As such, he had the right to file a petition for the declaration of nullity of the marriage between Maria Lina and Edwin. However, after Ho Kar Wai secured the divorce decree from Hong Kong, his marital relations with Maria Lina legally ceased," the court said.
Since Wai lost his status as the aggrieved spouse, the right to nullify the marriage did not transfer to Lina, who is considered the guilty spouse.
In explaining their decision, the SC cited Article 35(4) of the Family Code, which states that bigamous marriages, or those entered into while either party is still legally married to another, are "invalid from the beginning."
However, bigamous marriages must still be declared void by a court for the purpose of remarriage. This is in order to "protect an existing legal union–not to end it."
"Since the petitioner’s first marriage had already been dissolved, there is no legal union left to protect," the SC said.
The high court further found fault in Lina's desire to nullify her second marriage because she wanted to gain the ability to remarry.
The SC stressed that this cannot be allowed as it will "give rise to a ridiculous situation [where] the party who contracted the illicit subsequent marriage is permitted to invoke [its] bigamous nature… to nullify the same… [B]igamy will be treated by the erring spouse as a matter of convenience."
Despite denying the petition, Lina's bigamous marriage is still considered illegal and may result in her getting civil and criminal liability.
