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To still insist on 'punishment' at the expense of public policy, and at the cost of jurisprudence that will now state that bigamous marriages cannot be assailed by a direct action for its nullification, is an outdated position. And to what end? To teach individuals a lesson? Surely not.
Recently, the Supreme Court released a decision ruling that a person who commits bigamy cannot file a case for declaration of nullity of his or her bigamous marriage. Many newspapers and internet news portals reported it.
This is the case of Quirit-Figarito v. Figarito (G.R. No. 259520 November 5, 2024). The Filipina did not have a good first marriage with her alien-spouse. She then fell in love with a Filipino and lived with him. Her first alien-husband was able to obtain a foreign divorce decree which was judicially recognized by a Philippine court. The only problem was that her second marriage with the Filipino came before the foreign divorce decree and its judicial recognition.
In the eyes of the law therefore, the subsequent marriage was bigamous. Eventually, she separated from her Filipino partner leading her to file a petition to have the second marriage declared void for being bigamous. The Supreme Court (SC) disallowed the petition.
The SC said that allowing the offending spouse to do so, “even when the latter intentionally caused such illegitimacy and benefitted from its convenience for a considerable length of time, as in the present case, will inevitably bastardize the institution of marriage to the prejudice of the State.”
With all due respect to the Supreme Court, declaring such a marriage void will not “inevitably bastardize the institution of marriage to the prejudice of the State.” It is true that marriage is sacred, that our fundamental law describes it as an inviolable institution, but if the marriage is void from the beginning, then there is nothing to “bastardize.”
The Supreme Court has no power to change the status of a void marriage as defined by law, neither the statutory remedies to nullify it. Its only duty is to officially pronounce the nullity and legal non-existence of the same.
I do not see how allowing a direct action to void a bigamous marriage between two individuals prejudices the State, or any public interest. On the contrary, the nullification of such unprotected union by any of the parties will help re-engineer a relationship along the lofty aspirations of the law, namely the Family Code.
The Family Code is redemptive in nature. For example, a legal separation decree can be rendered without effect if parties themselves reconcile. The disqualification of the guilty spouse as an heir is abrogated. Obligations for support are reinstated. Relationships are restored to their original state.
For parental authority, if it is terminated, the reformed parental-abuser, in certain cases, may be allowed to recover their parental authority for a chance to do right by their child. The same is true for rescinded child-adoption decrees. The biological parents who were constrained to give up their child may be given the child back, if they prove to be fit.
In void and annulled marriages, there is no prohibition to remarry for either spouse. Both, whether they were at fault or not, are allowed to marry again. They are allowed to move on, and be given a new lease on life.
Why then should the case in Figarito be any different? If the letter of the law does not provide any form of disqualification for the erring spouse, why should it be applied as it was in this case? Why deprive a person of the natural effects of the law, while simultaneously not allowing a direct invalidation of a relationship the law itself declares to be void?
I am surprised why the decision appeared to have side-stepped the redemptive spirit of the Family Code.
If the idea of the Figarito ruling is to punish the “bigamers” by not giving them the remedy to officially nullify a void relationship which they created themselves, then it diminishes — if not destroys — the significance of more fundamental and overarching state-concerns: prohibiting the continuation of illegal marriages in our society, and providing a redemptive recourse to correct a legally anomalous situation.
Whether or not the involved person “benefitted from its convenience for a considerable length of time” is of no moment. Estoppel can never validate an unlawful relationship. Otherwise, marriage will be reduced to a contract without any special treatment demanded by its role at the center of family and society. Legal principles such as estoppel and “coming to court with clean hands” should not be given precedence over the clear declaration of the law, especially when it involves not just private relations but public policy.
Neither is it, I believe, the position of any court, even the Supreme Court, to render some form of punishment, direct or indirect, when the law provides none. In fact, in this case, the law provides the exact opposite. It declares bigamous marriages void regardless of the intent.
To still insist on “punishment” at the expense of public policy, and at the cost of jurisprudence that will now state that bigamous marriages cannot be assailed by a direct action for its nullification, is an outdated position. And to what end? To teach individuals a lesson? Surely not.
From the facts of the case contained in the Figarito decision, the bigamous “marriage” of the parties has neither the emotional core nor the legal justification required to create or sustain the marriage. The relationship is, so to speak, totally empty. Not human free will, not the law, but only the words of a decision are keeping this marriage unassailable through direct action.
But the SC has decided. Whether we agree or not, we have no option but to observe the ruling. It is now part of the law of the land. The SC’s institutional wisdom must be observed, respected and implemented until it is discarded.
Be that as it may, that is not to say that we should not criticize the decision if need be. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said in his magnum opus The Path of the Law, “one may criticize even what one reveres.” Commenting on the Supreme Court and its decisions is not maligning it. It is an exercise of one’s freedom of speech, always with the hope that, in doing so, the thinking of the citizenry can be critically enhanced for them to better evaluate what is truly for the paramount interest of the nation, its communities, and citizens. I just hope that, in the future, this en banc Supreme Court decision will be abandoned; again, with all due respect to the Supreme Court, especially to the ponente and those who voted in favor of the decision. – Rappler.com
