whether to go into declaration of nullity of marriage

Here are “steps” or suggestions in deciding whether to step out of the ring or not:

1. Make sure it is the last resort. As stated in a previous post, love and marriage are supposed to be forever. Try all options, like counseling, to make it work. If there’s no progress, weigh your options. On the other side of the scale is the reality that getting into another relationship or marriage, while the first marital bond is still existing, is a sure way of courting criminal liability (adultery, concubinage, bigamy). A subsequent petition for declaration of nullity/annulment of marriage is not a defense in the criminal action.

2. Realize that it will cost you. Getting out of marriage is sometimes more expensive than getting into one. Expenses include the fees for your lawyer or counsel, filing fees, professional fees for the psychiatrist or psychologist (if the ground is psychological incapacity), etc.

3. Discuss the custody of children, visitation rights, property arrangements and support. Custody over children and separation of properties in annulment are among the most bitter issues in annulment. As much as possible, discuss and agree on these matters beforehand.

4. Make sure to invoke a valid ground. Marriage is an inviolable social institution and any doubt is resolved in its favor. Hence, make sure there’s sufficient basis to go through the procedure discussed below.

The procedure provided under the Rules on Declaration of Absolute Nullity of Void Marriages and Annulment of Voidable Marriages is discussed below. Please note that a petition for “annulment” refers to voidable marriages, which are valid until annulled by the court, while a petition for “declaration of nullity” refers to marriages that are considered void or inexistent from the very beginning. There are other differences (e.g., legitimate status of children, property relations between the spouses, prescription and ratification), but let’s leave those for another day. For convenience, we shall refer to both petitions as “annulment”.

1. Preparation and filing of the petition. The petition may be filed, at the option of the spouse who filed it (called the “petitioner”), in the Family Court of the province or city where the petitioner or the other spouse (called the “respondent”) resides for the last 6 months prior to the date of filing, or in the case of a non-resident respondent, 7where he/she may be found in the Philippines. An Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) may file the petition even while abroad. Incidentally, upon filing of the petition or anytime thereafter, the court may issue provisional and protective orders.

2. Service of Summons. In simplest terms, this is giving notice to the respondent. Where the respondent cannot be located at the given address or the whereabouts are unknown and cannot be ascertained by diligent inquiry, service of summons may be done by publication. This is crucial because the court cannot validly proceed without service of summons.

3. Answer. The respondent must answer within 15 days from service of summons (or within 30 days from the last issue of publication in case of service of summons by publication). Unlike in civil cases, the respondent in annulment proceedings is not declared in default if no answer is filed, but the public prosecutor shall be ordered to investigate whether collusion exists between the parties.

4. Investigation report of public prosecutor. The public prosecutor prepares a report on whether there is collusion between the parties. If the court is convinced that collusion exists, it shall dismiss the petition; otherwise, the court shall set the case for pre-trial conference. The Rules dispensed with the requirement, as provided in Molina, that the Solicitor General issue a certification stating his reasons for his agreement or opposition to the petition.

5. Pre-trial conference. During the mandatory pre-trial conference, the court and the parties deal with certain matters, such as stipulation of facts, for the purpose of expediting the proceedings. The petition may be dismissed if the petitioner fails to appear during pre-trial. At this stage, the court may also refer the issues to a mediator who shall assist the parties in reaching an agreement on matters not prohibited by law (no compromise allowed in civil status of persons, validity of marriage or of legal separation, grounds for legal separation, jurisdiction of courts, and future support and legitime). The court may also require a social worker to conduct a case study and submit a report at least 3 days before the pre-trial conference, or at any stage of the case whenever necessary.

6. Trial. This is the stage where the ground for annulment is proved and opposed. The court may order the exclusion from the courtroom of all persons, including members of the press, who do not have a direct interest in the case.

7. Decision. After the trial proper, the court renders its decision, which is different from the Decree of annulment. A decision, whether granting or dismissing the petition, becomes final upon the expiration of 15 days from notice to the parties.

8. Appeal. The aggrieved party or the Solicitor General may appeal from the decision within 15 days from notice of denial of the motion for reconsideration or new trial.

9. Liquidation, partition and distribution, custody, support of common children and delivery of their presumptive legitimes. These are done upon entry of the judgment granting the petition.

10. Issuance of Decree of annulment. The court issues the Decree after: (i) registration of the entry of judgment granting the annulment in the Civil Registry where the marriage was celebrated and in the Civil Registry of the place where the court is located; (ii) registration of the approved partition and distribution of the properties of the spouses in the proper Register of Deeds where the real properties are located; and (iii) delivery of the children’s presumptive legitimes in cash, property, or sound securities.

11. Registration of the Decree. The Decree must be registered in the Civil Registry where the marriage was registered, the Civil Registry of the place where the court is situated, and in the National Census and Statistics Office

Valerio E. Kalaw vs. Ma. Elena Fernandez (G.R. No. 166357, 14 January 2015)

“SC relaxes rules on psychological incapacity as ground to annul marriages,” says the news title in a popular newspaper. The title naturally got my interest, not because I am filing a petition for nullity of marriage, but because we are handling petitions based on psychological incapacity under under Article 36 of the Family Code. While the news article does not mention the title of the case, it is clearly abundant that it refers to the 2015 case of Valerio E. Kalaw vs. Ma. Elena Fernandez (G.R. No. 166357, 14 January 2015). I combed the case to check how the Supreme Court “relaxed” the rules on petitions for declaration of nullity of marriage based on psychological incapacity. Unfortunately, I cannot find a confirmation of such “relaxation” in the rules. To have a fruitful discussion, allow me to humbly point to ten matters in the case that might be of interest to those who are searching for answers.

1. The rules provided in Molina remains valid

Practitioners refer to the guidelines for the interpretation and application of Article 36 as the Molina Doctrine, considering that the set of guidelines were first compiled in the 1997 case of Republic vs. Court of Appeals and Roridel Olaviano Molina (G.R. No. 108763). There are eight guidelines, as follows:

(1) The burden of proof to show the nullity of the marriage belongs to the plaintiff.

(2) The root cause of the psychological incapacity must be medically or clinically identified, alleged in the complaint, sufficiently proven by experts and clearly explained in the decision.

(3) The incapacity must be proven to be existing at “the time of the celebration” of the marriage.

(4) Such incapacity must also be shown to be medically or clinically permanent or incurable.

(5) Such illness must be grave enough to bring about the disability of the party to assume the essential obligations of marriage.

(6) The essential marital obligations must be those embraced by Articles 68 up to 71 of the Family Code as regards the husband and wife, as well as Articles 220, 221 and 225 of the same Code in regard to parents and their children.

(7) Interpretations given by the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, while not controlling or decisive, should be given great respect by our courts.

(8) The trial court must order the prosecuting attorney or fiscal and the Solicitor General to appear as counsel for the state.

In Kalaw, the Supreme Court categorically stated that “we are not suggesting the abandonment of Molina in this case.” The set of guidelines in Molina, therefore, stays. The pronouncement in Kalaw that is closest to “relaxation” of the guidelines is this: “The foregoing guidelines have turned out to be rigid, such that their application to every instance practically condemned the petitions for declaration of nullity to the fate of certain rejection.” There is no doubt that the Molina Doctrine is strict, but there is also no doubt that countless petitions have been granted pursuant to its guidelines. In other words, there appears to be no “relaxation” of the rules.

2. Expert testimony is decisive

If there’s anything in Kalaw that can be construed as a “relaxation” or departure from the Molina Doctrine, it’s the rule on expert witnesses. Guideline No. 2 in Molina provides that the “root cause of the psychological incapacity must be medically or clinically identified, alleged in the complaint, sufficiently proven by experts and clearly explained in the decision.” However, it has been established in previous cases that expert testimony is not a requisite in psychological incapacity cases. In other words, the absence of an expert witness does not automatically result to a denial of the petition. In a number of cases, including the case of Mendoza vs. Republic (G.R. No. 157649, 12 November 2012), the Supreme Court had the occasion to state that “the expert opinions of psychologists are not conditions sine qua non in the granting of petitions for declaration of nullity of marriage,” although the Court added that “the actual medical examination…was to be dispensed with only if the totality of evidence presented was enough to support a finding of his psychological incapacity.”
The requirement of the “totality of evidence,” on the other hand, is not new. It has been discussed in similar cases prior to Kalaw.
Going back to the value of expert testimonies, the Supreme Court in Kalaw restated the rule that “in the task of ascertaining the presence of psychological incapacity as a ground for the nullity of marriage, the courts, which are concededly not endowed with expertise in the field of psychology, must of necessity rely on the opinions of experts in order to inform themselves on the matter, and thus enable themselves to arrive at an intelligent and judicious judgment.”
Incidentally, in one of our cases, the judge noted that it is for the court — not the psychologist — to conclude that one or both parties is/are psychologically incapacitated. Indeed, the existence of psychological incapacity is a legal conclusion, which is within the exclusive province of the court, but this does not preclude the expert witness from expressing a similar “opinion,” pointing to the exact condition or personality disorder of the spouse/s.

3. The psychologist need not personally examine the incapacitated spouse

The usual objection raised against the testimony of the expert witness, especially when the services of the expert witness has been obtained by the petitioner-spouse and there is a conclusion that the respondent-spouse is psychologically incapacitated, is the usual inability of the psychologist to examine or interview the respondent spouse. In Kalaw, the Supreme Court reiterated the rule that “the lack of personal examination and interview of the person diagnosed with personality disorder…did not per se invalidate the findings of the experts.”
The opinion of the expert opinion should not be lightly brushed aside in the presence of the “totality of evidence” in the case. This is the reason why, in the cases we are handling, we require the client to present other witnesses to corroborate the client’s testimony on the facts which constitute the basis for the finding of the personality disorder and, ultimately, psychological incapacity. While clients initially complain about the presentation of other witnesses, we make it a point to carefully explain that this is needed to avoid an outright denial of the petition.

4. Article 36 is patterned after Church doctrines

It has been said that the Philippines is the only country in the whole world that does not have divorce. This, of course, did not deter the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) to make, in the language of the Supreme Court, an “exaggeration” in Molina that Article 36 is the “most liberal divorce procedure in the world.” In Kalaw, the Supreme Court noted that it was sensitive to the “exaggeration” of the OSG when it enunciated the “rigid” rules in Molina. “The unintended consequences of Molina, however, has taken its toll on people who have to live with deviant behavior, moral insanity and sociopathic personality anomaly, which, like termites, consume little by little the very foundation of their families, our basic social institutions. Far from what was intended by the Court, Molina has become a strait-jacket, forcing all sizes to fit into and be bound by it. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Court, in conveniently applying Molina, has allowed diagnosed sociopaths, schizophrenics, nymphomaniacs, narcissists and the like, to continuously debase and pervert the sanctity of marriage. Ironically, the Roman Rota has annulled marriages on account of the personality disorders of the said individuals.”
Article 36 is patterned after Church rules. As noted in Molina, “Since the purpose of including such provision in our Family Code is to harmonize our civil laws with the religious faith of our people, it stands to reason that to achieve such harmonization, great persuasive weight should be given to decisions of such appellate tribunal. Ideally — subject to our law on evidence — what is decreed as canonically invalid should also be decreed civilly void.”

5. Article 36 protects the family

The usual argument against Article 36, providing for psychological incapacity as a ground to declare the nullity of marriage, is that it weakens the family. On the contrary, as reiterated by the Supreme Court in Kalaw, Article 36 protects the institution of marriage. According to the Supreme Court, “the fulfillment of the constitutional mandate for the State to protect marriage as an inviolable social institution only relates to a valid marriage. No protection can be accorded to a marriage that is null and void ab initio, because such a marriage has no legal existence.”
“Indeed, Article 36 of the Family Code, in classifying marriages contracted by a psychologically incapacitated person as a nullity, should be deemed as an implement of this constitutional protection of marriage. Given the avowed State interest in promoting marriage as the foundation of the family, which in turn serves as the foundation of the nation, there is a corresponding interest for the State to defend against marriages ill-equipped to promote family life. Void ab initio marriages under Article 36 do not further the initiatives of the State concerning marriage and family, as they promote wedlock among persons who, for reasons independent of their will, are not capacitated to understand or comply with the essential obligations of marriage.”
[Part 1 of 2]