Flimsy grounds

Is lack of cohabitation a ground to annul marriage? This is one of the questions answered in this case of Al.

Al was a working student at a university. He worked as a bank security guard. While schooling, he met Lea, a provincial lass and started courting her. In the course of their courtship, Al and Lea had sexual relationship resulting in Lea’s pregnancy. Three months later or on April 13, 1988, they got married at Lea’s home province.

Al stayed with Lea at the province for almost a month after their marriage. Then he returned to Manila but continued writing letters to Lea containing expressions of his love. When in Manila, Lea also visited Al personally telling him of the progress of her pregnancy. Unfortunately, their son was born prematurely and the fetus died on August 29, 1988. From then on Al gradually drifted away from Lea until Al met and clandestinely married another girl.

When Lea learned about Al’s second marriage, she sued him for bigamy. For his defense, Al alleged that his marriage to Lea was made under threats of violence and duress. He also said that it was done out of fraud as he was made to believe that the latter was pregnant with his child when they got married, claiming that he did not have an erection during their tryst. To bolster his defense in the criminal case, he filed a petition for annulment of their marriage on November 17, 1992 or about 4 years and eight months later alleging the same grounds he raised as defenses in the charge of bigamy. He cited several incidents that created on his mind a reasonable and well grounded fear of an imminent and grave danger to his life and safety prior to their marriage, like harassing phone calls from Lea and strangers and unwanted visits by three men at the school premises and the threatening presence of an NPA commander whom he claimed to be hired by Lea’s family and who accompanied him to the province to marry Lea. He also claimed that his marriage to Lea should be annulled due to the absence of cohabitation between them. Could Al’s marriage to Lea be annulled based on those grounds?

No. If it is true that there was coerced consent it would not take Al a span of not less than four years and eight months to have the marriage annulled. The unexplained and prolonged inaction merely confirms that he filed the annulment suit solely in the hope that a favorable judgment thereon would bolster his defense in the bigamy case. Besides, Al’s apprehension of danger to his person is not so overwhelming as to deprive him of the will to voluntarily enter into a contract of marriage. At the time he was allegedly being harassed, he worked as a bank security guard so it is reasonable to assume that he knew the rudiments of self defense or at least the proper way to keep himself out of harm. For sure it is even doubtful if there were threats made on Al. He did not even seek the assistance of the school security or the police regarding the activities of those threatening him.

Al’s excuse that he could not have impregnated Lea is flimsy at best and an outright lie at worst. There was no reference at all in his complaint as to his inability to copulate. Besides, he admitted that he had sexual relationship with Lea sometime in January 1988 when they had a tryst at a hotel.

Al cannot also claim that his marriage should be annulled due to absence of cohabitation between him and Lea. Lack of cohabitation is not a ground to annul a marriage. Otherwise the validity of marriage will depend upon the will of the spouses who can terminate the marital union by refusing to cohabit. The failure to cohabit becomes relevant only if it arises as a result of the perpetration of any of the grounds for annulling the marriage, such as lack of parental consent, insanity, fraud, intimidation or undue influence. Since Al failed to justify his failure to cohabit with Lea on any of those grounds, the validity of their marriage must be upheld (Villanueva vs. Court of Appeals and Villanueva, G.R. 132955, October 27, 2006).

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