Joey Marquez files for annulment

Parañaque Mayor Joey Marquez has formally filed a marriage annulment petition against his actress-wife Alma Moreno, but without allegations of marital infidelity which primarily caused the collapse of their 13-year marriage about two months ago.

Marquez filed the nine-page petition with the Parañaque clerk of court on Wednesday through his lawyer Mark Anthony Antonio.

The lawyer said Marquez cited "psychological incapacity" as the reason for annulment, and additionally "neglect of (Moreno’s) duties as wife and financial misappropriations which the mayor had to handle for her." Antonio did not elaborate.

"We tried to limit our allegations to that. There was no discussion of philandering or those (misdemeanors) published in the papers because we do not want the children to suffer (the humiliation)," Antonio told The STAR.

The celebrity couple, who both have children from previous marriages, have three young kids.

The petition also did not touch on children’s custody and property division as the couple "have made their own agreement" on these matters.

"The reason we delayed the filing of this petition is to allow them to talk these things over. The good thing is that they have remained friends," said Antonio.

Antonio could not say how long the annulment process would take.

Moreno is not expected to file an opposition, he said, since under the law it is the job of the Solicitor General to oppose such petitions.

The petition will be raffled off but the Parañaque regional trial court has only one family court –under Judge Helen Ricafort –which is tasked under the law to hear such petitions..

The marriage of Marquez, a former basketball player with Presto, and Moreno, a teenage starlet in the ’70s, came to an end amidst a headline-making controversy early this year.

The couple was first married in Las Vegas in 1989 and then in the Philippines in the early ’90s prior to Joey’s entry into politics when he first ran for mayor of Parañaque City. He’s now on his third and last term.

In the aftermath of the controversy, Joey accused Alma of having a boyfriend in the person of one Jullian Say, a deejay in Cebu, an accusation which Alma denied, prompting Joey to show a video showing the alleged lovers on The Buzz during an interview with host Kris Aquino.

It was Alma who left the conjugal home in Parañaque City, leaving their four kids with Joey.

Alma lived in with Rudy Fernandez in the 70s, giving berth to Mark Anthony Fernandez who’s now also an actor and himself the father of a love child.

When she and Rudy broke up, Alma fell in love with Dolphy by whom she has a love child, Vandolph, who survived a car accident in Pangasinan last Nov. 19 that claimed the life of the young actor’s girlfriend, Desiree Raquiza.

It was only Joey who married Alma.

"We tried to patch things up, to no avail," Joey said in an interview. "I talked to Alma about staying in our Parañaque home, even if we had to lead separate lives, for the sake of the children. But she wouldn’t listen to me."

Now renting a house of her own, Alma has resumed her showbiz career and is now shooting her comeback movie, Kapalit, with Jay Manalo as one of her leading men. She’s suffering from multiple sclerosis which was diagnosed both in a local hospital and in the US middle of last year. –With Nikko Dizon, Jose Aravilla