SC voids marriage amid false cohabitation claim

The Supreme Court (SC) has voided a couple’s marriage after finding out that they falsely claimed five years of cohabitation to avoid obtaining a marriage license.

In a decision written by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul B. Inting released this week, the SC’s Third Division denied a petition seeking to declare the couple’s marriage valid despite the absence of a marriage license.

The couple had lived together as husband and wife since December 2003. In 2006, the husband left for Israel to work and returned in 2009 to marry his wife.

To facilitate their marriage without the required license, the couple executed an Affidavit of Cohabitation, claiming they had lived together for six years and were thus exempt from the marriage license requirement under the Family Code.

In 2013, the husband filed a petition to declare the marriage void, arguing that the affidavit they executed was false because he was in Israel for most of the period it covered.

RTC backed

The petition was granted by the Regional Trial Court (RTC), which found that the couple had not actually lived together continuously for five years before the marriage.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the RTC ruling, holding that the husband’s absence from 2006 to 2009 interrupted the required period of cohabitation. It also held that the affidavit could not substitute for a marriage license.

The government, through the Office of the Solicitor General, filed a petition before the SC, arguing that cohabitation does not require constant physical presence and that the husband’s work in Israel did not end the relationship because he returned to the Philippines for the wedding.

It also argued that he could not claim the affidavit was false after voluntarily executing it and using it to obtain a marriage license exemption.

In disagreeing, the SC said that under Article 3(2) of the Family Code, one of the formal requisites of marriage is a valid marriage license.

It explained that Article 34 provides an exception to this requirement for couples who have lived together as husband and wife for at least five years and have no legal impediment to marry each other.

The couple must state these facts in an affidavit, while the solemnizing officer must execute a sworn statement attesting that no legal impediment exists.

Precedent

Citing Niñal v. Bayadog, the high court reiterated that the five-year cohabitation period is counted back from the marriage date. The couple must have lived together continuously and exclusively, without interruption or a third party.