One of the three basic requirements of psychological incapacity of a spouse as a ground for declaration of nullity of the marriage under Article 36 of the Family Code (FC) is that it must have juridical antecedence or it is rooted in the history of the party, antedating the marriage although the overt manifestation may emerge only after the marriage. This is explained in this case of Rey and Nona.
Rey first met Nona in August 1973. He was then a young Lieutenant in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) while Nona was a 17-year-old first year college drop out. They had a whirlwind romance that culminated into sexual intimacy and eventual marriage on October 27, 1973.
During their marriage Rey was often assigned to various parts of the Philippine archipelago as an officer of the AFP particularly in Mindanao which were known areas of conflict during the ’70s. Nona did not cohabit with him in his posts, preferring to stay with her mother in her hometown of Basilan. She visited Rey in the latter’s area of assignment only once when she stayed for four days. Thus the couple did not acquire any property or incur debts or produce any offspring although they found and took care of an abandoned and neglected one-year-old girl whom they later registered as their daughter and named Nina.
Sometime in 1985 Rey became a Battalion Commander of the Security Escort Group and were given living quarters in Fort Bonifacio. So Nona and Nina moved in with Rey and resided there with their military aides. But in 1987, they were separated once more because Rey was incarcerated for being involved in a failed coup d’etat.
It turned out that Nona was an unfaithful spouse. Even at the onset of their marriage when Rey was assigned in various parts of the country, she had illicit relations with other men. Apparently she did not change her ways when they lived together at the Fort because she entertained male visitors in her bedroom whenever Rey was out of their living quarters. On one occasion Nona was caught by their security aide having sex with Rey’s driver. Because of the rumors about Nona’s sexual infidelity circulating in the military community, Rey got a military pass from his jail warden and confronted Nona.
During the confrontation, Nona and the driver admitted their relationship. So Rey drove Nona away from their living quarters. Nona then went back to Basilan together with Nina their adopted daughter, although Nina subsequently left Nona and came to live with Rey.
Thereafter Rey filed a Petition for Declaration of Nullity of Marriage with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) on the ground of psychological incapacity of Nona to fulfill the essential obligations of marriage. Nona however did not answer or file any responsive pleading. During the hearing, Rey and his two security aides testified together with a psychiatrist who made a report that Nona had a “Histrionic Personality Disorder” characterized by excessive emotion and attention seeking behavior based on her interview of Rey and the two security aides only and not of Nona.
On January 11, 1999, the RTC granted the petition and nullified Rey and Nona’s marriage. The RTC said that Nona’s psychological incapacity was grave, incurable and has juridical antecedence. Was the RTC correct?
No. While Nona has indeed been sexually disloyal to Rey, the totality of her acts does not constitute psychological incapacity under Article 36, of the FC. Her “defects” or alleged psychological incapacity have not been shown to be present at the inception of, or prior to, the marriage and thus did not satisfy the jurisprudential requisite of “juridical antecedence”. The psychiatrist’s conclusion that Nona’s Histrionic Personality Disorder which made her helplessly prone to promiscuity and sexual infidelity existed prior to her marriage to Rey, cannot be taken as credible proof of antecedence since the method by which it was reached leaves much to be desired in terms of the standard of evidence required to determine psychological incapacity. It did not emanate from a personal interview with Nona. She evaluated Nona’s psychological condition indirectly from Rey and his witnesses which may be tainted with bias for Rey’s cause in the absence of corroboration. Nona’s dysfunctional family portrait which brought about her Histrionic Personality Disorder as painted by the psychiatrist was based solely on the assumed truthful knowledge of Rey, the spouse who has most to gain if his wife is found to be psychologically incapacitated.
Article 36 of the FC is not to be confused with a divorce law that cuts the marital bond at the time the causes manifest themselves. Article 36 does not really dissolve a marriage; it simply recognizes that there was never any marriage in the first place because of the psychological illness afflicting a party even before the celebration of the marriage. It is a malady so grave and so permanent as to deprive one of awareness of the duties of the matrimonial bond (Ochosa vs. Alano and Republic, G.R. 167459, January 26, 2011).
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