Illegally innocent

To be liable for bigamy, the second or subsequent marriage contracted by the accused must have all the essential requisites for validity. If the second marriage contracted by the accused is not valid, she cannot be convicted of bigamy. But in this case of Nita, this rule is of no avail. Let us find out why.

Nita was a 43-year-old widow with two children. Since her husband died, she and her children lived with her in-laws in the province where she helped in the operations of the family’s piggery farm. It was during this time when she first met Pablo, an agent who sold piglets to her. Their frequent meetings somehow developed into an intimate relationship as Pablo visited often in her  house.

From the very start however, Nita’s children, as well as her brother-in-law and parents-in-law already disliked Pablo and somehow doubted his sincerity and personal background. Nevertheless Pablo persisted in courting Nita and the two decided to get married even if a few months before their scheduled date of marriage, Nita met Leona who introduced herself as Pablo’s legal wife of 20 years already.

Such information did not dissuade Nita to push through with her marriage to Pablo. So over and above the advice of her brother-in-law and parents-in-law that if she wanted to remarry she should choose someone who was “without responsibility,” Nita still married Pablo about less than four years after meeting and knowing each other.

The marriage was solemnized by a solemnizing officer even without a marriage license because Pablo and Nita misrepresented to him that they had actually been cohabiting as husband and wife for at least five years. Hence, a Marriage Certificate was issued by the Solemnizing Officer in which he stated under oath that no marriage license was necessary because the marriage was solemnized pursuant to Article 34 of the Family Code which exempts couples from getting a marriage license if they have been living together as husband and wife for at least five years.

But barely four months after their marriage Nita and Pablo were charged with the crime of Bigamy before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) upon complaint of Leona. Only Nita faced the charges and pleaded “not guilty” because Pablo escaped and went into hiding.

At the trial, Leona testified for the prosecution and reiterated that she met Nita twice, a few months before her marriage to Pablo when she introduced herself as Pablo’s legal wife. Nita however denied this allegation and insisted that she did not know that Pablo was married because she met Leona only after they got married already. She also claimed that her marriage to Pablo was null and void as they had no marriage license and they were not covered by Article 34 of the Family Code dispensing with said license because she and Pablo had not actually lived for at least 5 years as husband and wife considering that she met and knew Pablo for only about 4 years.

But the RTC still convicted Nita for marrying Pablo. It relied more on Leona’s testimony that she had already introduced herself as Pablo’s legal wife before said marriage. It also rejected Nita’s defense that the second marriage was null and void for lack of license and relied more on the Certificate of Marriage issued by the Solemnizing Officer who attested under oath that the marriage was celebrated without the need of a marriage license under Article 34 of the Family Code. So it sentenced Nita to suffer imprisonment of 6 months and 1 day as minimum to 6 years and 1 day as maximum. 

Nita appealed this ruling to the Court of Appeals (CA). She insisted that she could not be liable for the crime of bigamy because her second marriage to Pablo was null and void for lack of marriage license considering that, as admitted by the prosecution, they have not been living together as husband and wife for at least five years and therefore are not exempted from getting a marriage license. Was Nita correct?

No. Even if it is true that Nita and Pablo have only known each other for only less than four years, it appears that the two of them lied before the Solemnizing Officer and misrepresented that that they had cohabited for at least five years before they married each other. The Certificate of Marriage signed by them contains this misrepresentation they perpetrated. This is an anomalous situation where Nita seeks to be acquitted of bigamy based on her own illegal acts of (1) marrying Pablo without a marriage license despite knowing that they had not satisfied the cohabitation requirement under the law, and (2) falsely making claims in the very marriage contract itself. To countenance these illegal acts of Nita and in the same breadth adjudged her innocent of the crime would only make a mockery of the sanctity of marriage. The State’s penal laws on bigamy should not be rendered nugatory by allowing individuals to “deliberately ensure that each marital contract be flawed in some manner, and to thus escape the consequences of contracting multiple marriages while beguiling throngs of hapless women with promise of futurity and commitment.”

Nita may be liable in this case because she had knowledge of the previous subsisting marriage of Pablo. This constitutes an indispensable cooperation in the commission of the crime of bigamy. But it makes her liable only as an accomplice and not as principal. So her penalty should only be a minimum of six months up to a maximum of four years plus accessory penalties provided by law (Santiago vs. People, G.R. 200233, July 15, 2015).

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