Stephanie Maree N.

Dysangco Ateneo Law School I-D

NINAL VS. BAYADOG GR No. 133778, March 14, 2000

FACTS: In 1974, Pepito was married to Teodulfa. Their marriage was blessed with children. Teodulfa was shot by Pepito resulting in her death on April 24, 1985. On December 11, 1986, Pepito and Norma got married without any marriage license. In lieu thereof, Pepito and Norma executed an affidavit dated December 11, 1986 stating that they had lived together as husband and wife for at least five years and were thus exempt from securing a marriage license. On February 19, 1997, Pepito died in a car accident. After their fathers death, his children filed a petition for declaration of nullity of the marriage of Pepito to Norma alleging that the said marriage was void for lack of a marriage license.

ISSUE: Whether or not the second marriage of Pepito with Norma is null and void ab initio.

RULING: The Supreme Court declared the marriage of Pepito with Norma null and void ab initio because of the absence of marriage license, which is an essential element of a valid marriage. They were not exempt from securing a marriage license.

DOCTRINE: Under Article 76 of the Civil Code [now Article 34, Family Code], the requirement of marriage license is dispensed with in the marriage of a man and a woman who have

lived together and exclusively with each other as husband and wife for a continuous and unbroken period of at least five years before the marriage. The Supreme Court ruled that the five-year common-law cohabitation period, which is counted back from the date of celebration of marriage, should be a period of legal union had it not been for the absence of marriage. In other words, the parties must be legally capacitated to marry each other during the continuous and unbroken period of five years prior to their marriage. Otherwise, if that continuous 5-year cohabitation is computed without any distinction as to whether the parties were capacitated to marry each other during the entire five years, then the law would be sanctioning immorality and encouraging parties to have common law relationships and placing them on the same footing with those who lived faithfully with their spouse. In the present case, the five-year cohabitation period of Pepito and Norma was not the cohabitation contemplated by law. Pepito married Norma after only twenty months from the time his first marriage was dissolved by the death of his first wife. Even assuming that Pepito and his first wife had separated in fact, and thereafter both Pepito and Norma had started living with each other that has already lasted for five years, the fact remains that he had a subsisting marriage then. During the subsistence of his first marriage, Pepito was not legally capacitated to marry Norma. Thus, their cohabitation cannot be considered as living together as husband and wife under Article 76 of the Civil Code [now Article 34, Family Code].