Guilty spouse gets no relief

In Quirit-Figarido v. Figarido (G.R. 259520, 5 November 2024), the Supreme Court En Banc ruled that a spouse who knowingly contracts a bigamous marriage cannot later seek to nullify the same marriage on the ground of bigamy. The Court clarified that only the “aggrieved or injured spouse” may file a petition to declare a bigamous marriage void.

The case involved a woman who married a foreign national in Hong Kong in 1989. The marriage was later registered in the Philippines

While still legally married, she entered into a relationship with another man while working abroad. After becoming pregnant, she returned to the Philippines with him and eventually married him in Quezon City despite the subsistence of her first marriage.

Years later, the foreign husband secured a divorce decree abroad, which was eventually recognized in the Philippines. After separating from her second husband, the woman filed a petition seeking to declare the second marriage void ab initio for being bigamous under Article 35(4) of the Family Code.

Both the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals denied the petition, ruling that she had no legal standing to file the action because she knowingly contracted the second marriage despite the existence of her prior valid marriage.

Affirming the lower courts, the Supreme Court emphasized that while Article 35(4) of the Family Code declares bigamous and polygamous marriages void from the beginning, the right to file a petition for declaration of nullity is governed by A.M. 02-11-10-SC, otherwise known as the Rule on Declaration of Absolute Nullity of Void Marriages and Annulment of Voidable Marriages.

Although Section 2(a) of the Rule provides that the petition may be filed solely by the husband or the wife, the Court clarified that the accompanying rationale limits such right to the “aggrieved or injured spouse.” The Court explained that the purpose of allowing petitions for declaration of nullity of bigamous marriages is the protection and preservation of the institution of marriage, not to provide the guilty spouse with a convenient means of dissolving an illicit union.

According to the Court, allowing the offending spouse to invoke the bigamous nature of the marriage “results in a legal absurdity” because it would effectively permit the guilty party to terminate the marriage at will.

Citing Juliano-Llave v. Republic of the Philippines, the Court reiterated that the “injured spouse” contemplated by the Rules is ordinarily the spouse in the subsisting prior marriage because it is that spouse who suffers the emotional, legal, financial and property-related consequences of the subsequent illicit union.

The Court stressed that the subsequent marriage becomes a continuing reminder of infidelity and disregard of the sanctity of the prior marriage protected by the Constitution.

The Court likewise rejected the argument that the subsequent recognition of the foreign divorce somehow cured the defect in the second marriage. The High Court held that the recognition of the divorce did not retroactively erase the fact that the second marriage was contracted while the first marriage was still subsisting.

More importantly, it did not convert the offending spouse into the “aggrieved spouse” contemplated by law and jurisprudence.

The Supreme Court likewise invoked the equitable doctrine that one who comes to court must do so with clean hands. Having knowingly and voluntarily entered into a marriage while a prior marriage remained valid and subsisting, the offending spouse could not later seek equitable relief from the courts.

In the end, the ruling reinforces a principle deeply embedded in our legal system: The law cannot be used as an instrument by one who knowingly violated it in the first place. Marriage, after all, is not merely a contract between parties. It is an institution protected by the Constitution, and the Court made clear that such protection cannot be invoked selectively or conveniently by the very person who disregarded it.

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