This case has been cited 3 times or more.
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2011-01-26 |
LEONARDO-DE CASTRO, J. |
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| It is also established in jurisprudence that from these requirements arise the concept that Article 36 of the Family Code does not really dissolve a marriage; it simply recognizes that there never was any marriage in the first place because the affliction - already then existing - was so grave and permanent as to deprive the afflicted party of awareness of the duties and responsibilities of the matrimonial bond he or she was to assume or had assumed.[11] | |||||
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2011-01-17 |
VILLARAMA, JR., J. |
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| The term "psychological incapacity" to be a ground for the nullity of marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code, refers to a serious psychological illness afflicting a party even before the celebration of the marriage.[11] These are the disorders that result in the utter insensitivity or inability of the afflicted party to give meaning and significance to the marriage he or she has contracted.[12] Psychological incapacity must refer to no less than a mental (not physical) incapacity that causes a party to be truly incognitive of the basic marital covenants that concomitantly must be assumed and discharged by the parties to the marriage.[13] | |||||
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2010-12-01 |
VILLARAMA, JR., J. |
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| The guidelines listed in Molina are but expositions of what the Court has determined in Santos v. Bedia-Santos[35] as characteristics of the psychological incapacity that render a marriage void under Article 36 of the Family Code; these guidelines merely incorporated the basic requirements of gravity, juridical antecedence and incurability.[36] Molina did not create new rules, but simply identified and consolidated the legislative intent behind Article 36 of the Family Code. A majority of the guidelines listed corresponds to and is consistent with the concept of psychological incapacity that the members of the Family Code Revision Committee had in mind, the interpretation of Canon 1095 from which the provision was modeled after, and the existing laws, both procedural and substantive. The guidelines in Molina were never intended to remove the resiliency and flexibility envisioned by the framers in the application and interpretation of Article 36 of the Family Code. The resiliency and flexibility, however, are not a license to interpret Article 36 of the Family Code as allowing any and every assertion of psychological incapacity to merit a declaration of nullity of marriage. The Court remains bound to interpret the provision in a manner consistent with the Constitution and relevant family laws. For now, Article 36 of the Family Code will remain to be a limited remedy, addressing only a specific situation - a relationship where no marriage could have been validly concluded because the parties, or one of them, by reason of grave and incurable psychological illness existing at the time when the marriage was celebrated, was incapacitated to fulfill the essential marital obligations and, thus, could not have validly entered into a marriage. Outside of this situation, the Court is powerless to provide any permanent remedy. | |||||