Fictitious marriage

The best proof of a marriage is the marriage contract or marriage certificate. But if the entries therein are false especially regarding the identity of one of the parties, said entries can be simply cancelled or corrected so as to show the inexistence of the marriage. This is illustrated in this case of Ruth.

Ruth is one of the young adult career women trying to make good in her chosen profession with a well paying job in a pharmaceutical company. But even while already working, she has also not forgotten her love life. She met Randy and they became sweethearts. After five years of courtship, and convinced that they were meant for each other, Ruth accepted Randy’s marriage proposal.

Before they can get married however, Ruth was required to get a certification from the National Statistics Office (NSO) that she was still single, or what is known as the Certificate of No Marriage (CENOMAR).

To her surprise, Ruth discovered in the certificate issued to her by the NSO that she was already married to a certain Kim Park, a Korean national, at the Cebu City Municipal Trial Court (MTCC). Because of this discovery, Ruth filed a “Petition for Cancellation of Entries in the Marriage Contract” before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) pursuant to Rule 108 of the Rules of Court, especially the entries in the portion of the marriage contract containing information about the “wife.”

During the hearing, Ruth testified and denied having contracted that marriage and claimed that she did not even know Kim Park. She further explained that she could have not been in Cebu City during the alleged date of the wedding and appeared before the solemnizing officer because at that time she was working at a pharmaceutical company in Makati. She however admitted that she knew the witnesses named in the marriage certificate as she had met them while she was still working as a receptionist in a hotel. She believed that her name was used by a travel agency personnel to whom she gave her personal circumstances when she applied for a passport.

She also presented as witness an employee of MTCC who confirmed that the marriage of Kim Park was indeed celebrated in their office, but claimed that the alleged “wife” who appeared was definitely not Ruth. Then a document examiner also testified that her signature appearing in the marriage contract was forged. Based on these facts, the RTC decided in favor of Ruth and ordered the cancellation and correction of the entries on the portion of the marriage contract pertaining to the wife.

The Republic of the Philippines (Republic) however questioned this decision. They claimed that there are no errors in the entries sought to be cancelled or corrected because said entries are the ones provided by the person who appeared and represented herself as Ruth. Furthermore, the Republic contended that in directing the cancellation of the entries in the “wife” portion of the marriage contract, the RTC, in effect, declared the marriage null and void which cannot be done in a petition for cancellation or correction of entries in the civil registry under Rule 108. Is the Republic correct?

No. Even substantial errors in a civil registry may be corrected through a petition filed under Rule 108, by facts established in the appropriate adversarial proceeding.

In this case, Ruth was able to prove by overwhelming evidence that no marriage was entered into and that she was not even aware of the existence of that marriage. The testimonial and documentary evidence clearly established that the only “evidence” of marriage which is the marriage contract or certificate was a forgery. While Rule 108 cannot be availed of to determine the validity of marriage, the proceedings before the trial court cannot be nullified where all the parties had been given the opportunity to contest the allegations of Ruth. Records show that the proceedings under Rule 108 were followed, and all the evidence of the parties had already been admitted and examined. Ruth indeed sought, not the nullification of marriage as there was no marriage to speak of, but the correction of the record of such marriage to reflect the truth as established by the evidence. By ordering the cancellation and correction of the portion in the marriage contract regarding the wife, the trial court did not, in any way, declare the marriage void as there was no marriage to speak of (Republic of the Philippines vs. Merlinda L. Olaybar, G.R. No. 189538, February 10, 2014).

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