On Annulment of Marriages in the Philippines

In the Philippines, more and more couples or husbands and wives are having a hard time dealing with individual differences after they got married probably due to incompatibilities, severe personal differences that they only found out after tying the knots which could bring about feelings of insecurities, paranoia and denial that oftentimes could even lead to affairs of the other party due to gross miscommunication, frequent quarrels and even physical separation.

More and more disgruntled couples are now seeking the solace of permanently revoking their marriages with their partners for the reasons that they are no longer happy with the relationships that they currently have. Most of the time, the reason why couples are not pursuing permanent separations is because of the children (if the couple has/have).

However, although divorce is not allowed in the Philippines, filing for nullity of marriage is possible. As long as the reasons for nullity of marriage is within the context of what is prescribed by law, then any couple who would like to end their dilemma, could file for the annulment of their marriage. Probably, for the purposes of marrying another partner in the future after the annulment would have been granted by the court.

But what are the valid reasons before one person or even a couple could nullify their marriages?
In principle, there are two differences however for nullity of marriage; "annulment" applies to a marriage that is considered valid, but there are grounds to nullify it while a "declaration of nullity of marriage" applies to marriages that are void or invalid from the very beginning or those marriages that are never valid in the first place.

For those who are not aware, I would like to put here the valid reasons/grounds for annulment ;

1. Lack of parental consent in certain cases. If a party is 18 years or over, but below 21, and the marriage was solemnized without the consent of the parents/guardian. However, the marriage is validated if, upon reaching 21, the spouses freely cohabited with the other and both lived together as husband and wife.

2. Insanity. A marriage may be annulled if, at the time of marriage, either party was of unsound mind, unless such party after coming to reason, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife.

3. Fraud. The consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless such party afterwards, with full knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife. Fraud includes: (i) non-disclosure of a previous conviction by final judgment of the other party of a crime involving moral turpitude; (ii) concealment by the wife of the fact that at the time of the marriage, she was pregnant by a man other than her husband; (iii) concealment of sexually transmissible disease or STD, regardless of its nature, existing at the time of the marriage; or (iv) concealment of drug addiction, habitual alcoholism or homosexuality or lesbianism existing at the time of the marriage. However, no other misrepresentation or deceit as to character, health, rank, fortune or chastity shall constitute such fraud as will give grounds for action for the annulment of marriage.

4. Force, intimidation or undue influence. If the consent of either party was obtained by any of these means, except in cases wherein the force, intimidation or undue influence having disappeared or ceased, the complaining party thereafter freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife.

5. Impotence. At the time of marriage, either party was physically incapable of consummating the marriage with the other, and such incapacity continues and appears to be incurable. Impotence is different from being infertile.

6. STD. If, at the time of marriage, either party was afflicted with a sexually-transmissible disease found to be serious and appears to be incurable. If the STD is not serious or is curable, it may still constitute fraud (see No. 3 above).

The grounds for declaration of nullity of marriage that the court might accept before a marriage could be declared as null and void are the following;

1. Minority (those contracted by any party below 18 years of age even with the consent of parents or guardians).

2. Lack of authority of solemnizing officer (those solemnized by any person not legally authorized to perform marriages, unless such marriages were contracted with either or both parties believing in good faith that the solemnizing officer had the legal authority to do so).

3. Absence of marriage license (except in certain cases).

4. Bigamous or polygamous marriages (except in cases where the other spouse is declared as presumptively dead).

5. Mistake in identity (those contracted through mistake of one contracting party as to the identity of the other).

6. After securing a judgment of annulment or of absolute nullity of marriage, the parties, before entering into the subsequent marriage, failed to record with the appropriate registry the: (i) partition and distribute the properties of the first marriage; and (ii) delivery of the children’s presumptive legitime.

7. Incestuous marriages (between ascendants and descendants of any degree, between brothers and sisters, whether of the full or half blood).

8. Void by reason of public policy. Marriages between (i) collateral blood relatives whether legitimate or illegitimate, up to the fourth civil degree; (ii) step-parents and step-children; (iii) parents-in-law and children-in-law; (iv) adopting parent and the adopted child; (v) surviving spouse of the adopting parent and the adopted child; (vi) surviving spouse of the adopted child and the adopter; (vii) an adopted child and a legitimate child of the adopter; (viii) adopted children of the same adopter; and (ix) parties where one, with the intention to marry the other, killed that other person’s spouse, or his or her own spouse.

9. Psychological Incapacity. Psychological incapacity, which a ground for annulment of marriage, contemplates downright incapacity or inability to take cognizance of and to assume the basic marital obligations; not a mere refusal, neglect or difficulty, much less, ill will, on the part of the errant spouse. Irreconcilable differences, conflicting personalities, emotional immaturity and irresponsibility, physical abuse, habitual alcoholism, sexual infidelity or perversion, and abandonment, by themselves, also do not warrant a finding of psychological incapacity.

There are still other grounds to declare a marriage as null and void and in our other
upcoming blogs we are going to lengthily discuss some of them.

Although anullment as described above could be taken advantage by couples who are no longer interested to save their marriages, it is still not an easy process since filing for nullity of marriage requires time and money. On top of that, it also drags both parties (specially if both parties are not willing to cooperate to the nullity of their marriage) psychologically, emotionally, mentally and financially. However, for some, it might be the only way to be able to restart a new life and move ahead in life.