SC: Only the injured spouse can ask to nullify a bigamous marriage | ABS-CBN

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SC: Only the injured spouse can ask to nullify a bigamous marriage

SC: Only the injured spouse can ask to nullify a bigamous marriage

Adrian Ayalin,

ABS-CBN News

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MANILA — The Supreme Court has ruled that only the injured spouse, not the offender, can ask the court to nullify a bigamous marriage

In a decision of the en banc promulgated on November 5, 2024, the court denied a Filipina’s petition to declare her second marriage void for being bigamous.

The petitione's first marriage was to Chinese national in Hong Kong. 

While working as a bank teller in Hong Kong, she met a Filipino client and decided to return to the Philippines after getting pregnant with his child.

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She then married her Filipino client in the Philippines and they had two children together.

Her Chinese husband later obtained a divorce in Hong Kong, which a Parañaque court recognized.

After 14 years of marriage with her Filipino husband, she sought to nullify their marriage by justifying that it was void for being bigamous and requested permission to remarry.

Both the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals denied her petition.

In denying the Filipina’s petition, the Supreme Court did not find merit in her claim that it would not hurt anyone.

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It said in a decision penned by Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario that allowing the bigamous spouse's petition to nullify a marriage she had caused the illegitimacy of and that she benefited from "will inevitably bastardize the institution of marriage to the prejudice of the State."

Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, as well as Associate Justices Amy Lazaro-Javier, Rodil Zalameda and Ramon Paul Hernando dissented to the majority opinion.

“To be abundantly clear, even unfaithful wives who cheat on their husbands are entitled to the full measure of the law, as morally objectionable as their infidelity may have been,” Lazaro-Javier said in her dissent.

“Given the foregoing, I dissent and the court should have granted this petition as it is the only way for AAA to rectify her grave mistake and formally put an end to an obviously void marriage,” Zalameda said.

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