Supreme Court: Wanting annulment not a 'collusion' between spouses
MANILA, Philippines — A husband and wife’s shared desire to end their marriage does not automatically amount to collusion in annulment and declaration of nullity cases, the Supreme Court has ruled.
In a Feb. 3 decision penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh, the high court’s Third Division said a spouse’s lack of opposition, or even agreement to an annulment, is not the same as a secret scheme to mislead the courts.
Collusion, the court said, involves a secret agreement between spouses to fake or misrepresent facts to obtain the dissolution of a marriage.
The case
The case stemmed from a wife’s petition to nullify her marriage. Because the husband did not file a formal answer, the Regional Trial Court directed the provincial prosecutor to investigate whether the couple was colluding.
After an inquiry, the associate provincial prosecutor reported that no collusion existed.
During trial, the wife presented a clinical psychologist, as well as the husband’s father and cousin, who corroborated her claims about his alleged vices and abusive behavior. The husband offered no defense and did not oppose the petition.
Despite the prosecutor’s findings and the testimonies, the trial court dismissed the case, ruling that psychological incapacity had not been sufficiently proven.
The trial court also expressed skepticism over the testimonies of the husband’s relatives, saying their statements favored the wife. It noted that the husband’s father admitted discussing his testimony with his son and that the husband had openly expressed his willingness to have the marriage annulled.
The Court of Appeals later reversed the dismissal, finding sufficient evidence to prove psychological incapacity. The Republic, through the Office of the Solicitor General, elevated the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the spouses had colluded.
The ruling
The Supreme Court denied the state’s appeal.
Citing De Ocampo v. Florenciano, the high court said collusion in divorce or legal separation cases means an agreement between husband and wife for one of them “to commit, or to appear to commit, or to be represented in court as having committed, a matrimonial offense, or to suppress evidence of a valid defense” so the other spouse could obtain a divorce.
The court said collusion exists only when spouses actively cooperate to fabricate, fake or conceal a marital offense to secure the dissolution of a marriage.
While the Family Code requires public prosecutors to investigate and prevent collusion, especially when a respondent fails to answer a petition, the Supreme Court said the trial court’s suspicions in this case did not amount to clear proof of conspiracy.
The high court stressed that a mutual desire to end a marriage is different from a fraudulent scheme. Without concrete evidence that the couple faked testimony or suppressed valid defenses, collusion cannot be legally established. It said:
“In the absence of any evidence that the parties conspired to fabricate a matrimonial offense or colluded to obtain a declaration of nullity without valid grounds, a finding of collusion is unwarranted. It should never be discounted that the severity of the spouses' marital conflicts is reason enough to encourage relatives from both sides to come forward and testify."
The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals’ ruling, saying the husband’s psychological incapacity was substantiated by witness testimonies and the clinical evaluation of both spouses.
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