The State is still the defensor vinculi matrimonii, the defender of marriage but…

By Atty. Anfred Panes

The recent pronouncement of the Supreme Court in the 2021 en banc decision of Tan-Andal v. Andal, (G.R. No. 196359) unanimously modified the interpretation of psychological incapacity as a ground for declaration of nullity of marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code. Resultantly, the stringent requirement for nullity of marriage under the 1997 case, popularly known in legal and academic parlance as the Molina Doctrine, has been relaxed.  The primacy of employing a scientific approach in deciding nullity of marriage cases has now been toned down, but not totally diluted, to a more legalistic determination as adduced based on the facts and evidence of each distinctive case.

The new Supreme Court ruling, speaking through Justice Leonen, enunciates that “psychological incapacity is not a medical but a legal concept.” I daresay that it entails a legally creative manner, not in a prejudiced and pejorative sense, of presenting the totality of facts to mount the required quantum of evidence.  Anent this, the clarity in the controlling quantum of evidence required in nullity cases is also more pronounced.  In this case, and in the forthcoming, the plaintiff-spouse must prove his or her case with clear and convincing evidence. This is a quantum of proof that requires more than preponderant evidence but less than proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Thusly, the probative value of scientific reports are still afforded weight to merit such quantum of evidence.  However, it is not indispensable.  It is not a guarantee that psychological and psychiatric reports constitute a prima facie case of nullity.  Now, more controlling are the facts and evidence adduced to prove that the marital obligations of husband and wife enshrined under Title III of the Family Code, had been utterly neglected out of irresponsibility and indifference to fulfill the special legal contract of marriage between the husband and wife.

Reasonably inferred is the argument that the stringent guidelines in granting the nullity of marriage is no longer countenanced because the legal safeguards of abounding jurisprudential dicta are still in place to temper the courts from exercising unbridled discretion in granting the nullity of marriage.  In a similar vein, it bears to note that the Court has been too strict to appreciate the totality of circumstances of psychological incapacity in the case of Pesca vs. Pesca, G.R. No. 136921.  It is of my opinion that in this 2001 case, the state of husband as a cruel, violent and a habitual drinker, can warrant nullity of marriage when it already destroys the very foundation of the marital bond. The rule on stare decisis, referring to the Molina Doctrine, should not be imposed on the nuanced facts and circumstances of the spouses especially when the irresponsibility to fulfill the marital obligations have become so adamant and irreparable.

Nonetheless, eight years after the Pesca ruling, the Supreme Court pronounced in the case Te vs. Te, G.R. No. 161793, in this wise:

“In hindsight, it may have been inappropriate for the Court to impose a rigid set of rules, as the one in Molina, in resolving all cases of psychological incapacity. Understandably, the Court was then alarmed by the deluge of petitions for the dissolution of marital bonds, and was sensitive to the OSG’s exaggeration of Article 36 as the “most liberal divorce procedure in the world.” 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.”

Here, the Supreme Court is apologetic of the Pesca ruling because the grounds to nullify the marriage need not be so rigid but it must be based on its own facts, and not on stare decisis. The courts need to be more perceptive of marital abuses prevalent among marriages, and should grant its severance when so warranted, to give an opportunity to the victim-spouse to redeem himself/herself from the discorded nest of the marital bond.

The ponente in the Andal case said in this wise:

“Love is founded on a promise: to seek beyond ourselves in order to enable and ennoble the other to continue to become the best version of themselves. Being in love can be carried on the wings of poetry, announced publicly through each other’s gazes. It is made real and felt with every act of unconditional care and comfort that the lover provides. Love can be beyond labels.”

However, notwithstanding the statement of the aforementioned, we need to reconcile this with the entirety of the legal ramifications of the Andal ruling.

Nevertheless, while there is a remedy to nullify the marriage on ground of psychological incapacity, no less than Article 2, Section 12, of the Philippine Constitution provides that “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution…”. The legal mandate thereof is far more supreme that that of the Civil Code’s yet we judge based on facts and on the merits of the case.

In Mirasol Castillo v. Republic of the Philippines and Felipe Impas, G.R. No. 214064, citing Villalon v. Villalon, 512 Phil. 219, 230, it was pronounced that the policy of the State is to protect and strengthen the family as the basic social institution and marriage is the foundation of the family.  Any doubt should be resolved in favor of validity of the marriage. Thus, the State serves as a defender of the marital bond and as an advocate for the perseveration of family.

The relaxed guidelines in the declaration of nullity of marriages should not be deemed as a fertile ground to clog the court of nullity cases.  We need to consider the primacy of family life.  In a catena of Supreme Court decisions, there is no psychological incapacity to warrant nullity of marriage when there are constant quarrels and irreconcilable difference, mere financial difficulties, and even mere personality disorder without showing how it affects the ability to perform marital obligations.

However, it is worth emphasizing that in a dissenting opinion in the case of Matudan vs. Republic, G.R. No. 203284, the ponente himself of Tan-Andal vs Andal case, Justice Leonen opined that the choice to stay in or leave a marriage is not for this Court, or the State, to make. The choice is given to the partners, with the Constitution providing that “[t]he right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and demands of responsible parenthood”.  Counterintuitively, the State protects marriage if it allows those found to have psychological illnesses that render them incapable of complying with their marital obligations to leave the marriage. To force partners to stay in a loveless marriage, or a spouseless marriage as in this case, only erodes the foundation of a family.

Notwithstanding the judicial asseveration that the State must still act as the defensor vinculi matrimonii – the defender of marriage – there is still a need to reconcile the State’s sworn duty with the totality of the circumstances that no one should be forced to stay in a loveless and destructive marriage.  To prove this legal truth is set out on how it is played in the halls of justice.