RICARDO P. TORING V. TERESITA M. TORING and REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
G.R. No. 165321, [ August 3, 2010]
DOCTRINE:
A marriage will be annulled on the ground of psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code if it is characterized by (a) gravity, (b) juridical antecedence, and (c) incurability. Furthermore, the root cause of the psychological incapacity must be alleged in the complaint and duly proven. The complete facts should allege the physical manifestations, if any, as are indicative of psychological incapacity at the time of the celebration of the marriage but expert opinion need not be alleged.
FACTS:
Petitioner Ricardo and Respondent Teresita are husband and wife with three children. After 20 years of marriage, Ricardo filed a petition for annulment before the RTC. He claimed that Teresita was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential obligations of marriage prior to, at the time of, and subsequent to the celebration of their marriage. Therefore, he asked the court to declare his marriage to Teresita null and void. He alleges that Teresita is a squanderer because she did not know how to manage the funds of the family and is always incurring debts. Aside from this, Teresita likewise failed to remit amounts she collected as sales agent of a plastic-ware and cosmetics company. She left the family’s utility bills and their children’s tuition fees unpaid. She also missed paying the rent and the amortization for the house that Ricardo acquired for the family. He also alleges that Teresita is an adultress because she presents herself as a single woman and sees other men while Ricardo is away for work as an overseas contract worker. He also suspected that she was pregnant with another man’s child and proved himself correct when Teresita incurred a miscarriage. He claims that he could not have fathered the child because his three instances of sexual contact with Teresita were characterized by “withdrawals”.
To bolster his position, Ricardo introduced the testimony and evidence prepared by Dr. Cecilia R. Albaran. The doctor stated that the demise of the marriage of the spouses was due to the Narcissistic Personality Disorder of Teresita. Her behavioral patterns indicate this kind of disorder which is considered to be grave and incurable based on the fact that individuals do not recognize the symptoms as it is ego syntonic and they feel there is nothing wrong in them. Interestingly, the doctor based her diagnosis from the testimony given by Ricardo and Richardson, the eldest child of the couple. This is because Dr. Albaran was not able to conduct a personal psychiatric evaluation over Teresita.
In opposing the petition for annulment, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) contended that there was no basis to declare Teresita psychologically incapacitated. It asserted that the psychological evaluation conducted on Ricardo (and his son Richardson) only revealed a vague and general conclusion on these parties’ personality traits but not on Teresita’s psychological makeup. The OSG also argued that the evidence adduced did not clinically identify and sufficiently prove the medical cause of the alleged psychological incapacity. Neither did the evidence indicate that the alleged psychological incapacity existed prior to or at the time of marriage, nor that the incapacity was grave and incurable.
The RTC ruled to annul the marriage on the basis of the evidence and testimony presented in court. However, the Solicitor General appealed the case and the Court of Appeals reversed the ruling on the ground that the RTC did not satisfy the rules and guidelines set by this Court in
Republic v. Court of Appeals and Molina. The RTC failed point out the root illness or defect that caused Teresita’s psychological incapacity, and likewise failed to show that the incapacity already existed at the time of celebration of marriage.
The CA found that the conclusions from Dr. Albaran’s psychological evaluation do not appear to have been drawn from well-rounded and fair sources, and dwelt mostly on hearsay statements and rumors. Likewise, the CA found that Ricardo’s allegations on Teresita’s overspending and infidelity do not constitute adequate grounds for declaring the marriage null and void under Article 36 of the Family Code. These allegations, even if true, could only effectively serve as grounds for legal separation or a criminal charge for adultery.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the CA erred in reversing the decision of the trial court.
HELD:
No, the CA is correct in reversing the decision made by the trial court because the decision of the latter failed to comply with the standards and guidelines provided for by jurisprudence.
RATIO:
In the leading case of Santos v. Court of Appeals,et al.,11we held that psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code must be characterized by (a) gravity, (b) juridical antecedence, and (c) incurability, to be sufficient basis to annul a marriage.
We further expounded on Article 36 of the Family Code in Molina and laid down definitive guidelines in the interpretation and application of this article. These guidelines incorporate the basic requirements of gravity, juridical antecedence and incurability established in the
Santos case, as follows:
(1) The burden of proof to show the nullity of the marriage belongs to the plaintiff. Any doubt should be resolved in favor of the existence and continuation of the marriage and against its dissolution and nullity. This is rooted in the fact that both our Constitution and our laws cherish the validity of marriage and unity of the family.
(2) The root cause of the psychological incapacity must be (a) medically or clinically identified, (b) alleged in the complaint, (c) sufficiently proven by experts and (d) clearly explained in the decision. Article 36 of the Family Code requires that the incapacity must be psychological – not physical, although its manifestations and/or symptoms may be physical. The evidence must convince the court that the parties, or one of them, was mentally or psychically ill to such an extent that the person could not have known the obligations he was assuming, or knowing them, could not have given valid assumption thereof. The root cause must be identified as a psychological illness and its incapacitating nature fully explained. Expert evidence may be given by qualified psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. (3) The incapacity must be proven to be existing at “the time of the celebration” of the marriage. The evidence must show that the illness was existing when the parties exchanged their “I do’s.” The manifestation of the illness need not be perceivable at such time, but the illness itself must have attached at such moment, or prior thereto.
(4) Such incapacity must also be shown to be medically or clinically permanent or incurable. Furthermore, such incapacity must be relevant to the assumption of marriage obligations, not necessarily to those not related to marriage, like the exercise of a profession or employment in a job. Hence, a pediatrician may be effective in diagnosing illnesses of children and prescribing medicine to cure them but may not be psychologically capacitated to procreate, bear and raise his/her own children as an essential obligation of marriage.
(5) Such illness must be grave enough to bring about the disability of the party to assume the essential obligations of marriage. Thus, “mild characteriological peculiarities, mood changes, occasional emotional outbursts” cannot be accepted as root causes. The illness must be shown as downright incapacity or inability, not a refusal, neglect or difficulty, much less ill will.
(6) The essential marital obligations must be those embraced by Articles 68 up to 71 of the Family Code as regards the husband and wife as well as Articles 220, 221 and 225 of the same Code in regard to parents and their children. Such non-complied marital obligation(s) must also be stated in the petition, proven by evidence and included in the text of the decision. (7) Interpretations given by the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, while not controlling or decisive, should be given great respect by our courts.
In so far as the present factual situation is concerned, what should not be lost in reading and applying our established rulings is the intent of the law to confine the application of Article 36 of the Family Code to the most serious cases of personality disorders; these are the disorders that result in the utter insensitivity or inability of the afflicted party to give meaning and significance to the marriage he or she contracted. Furthermore, the psychological illness and its root cause must have been there from the inception of the marriage. From these requirements arise the concept that Article 36 of the Family Code does not really dissolve a marriage; it simply recognizes that there never was any marriage in the first place because the affliction – already then existing – was so grave and permanent as to deprive the afflicted party of awareness of the duties and responsibilities of the matrimonial bond he or she was to assume or had assumed.
In the present case and guided by these standards, we find the totality of the petitioner’s evidence to be insufficient to prove that Teresita was psychologically incapacitated to perform her duties as a wife. First of all, the testimony given by Dr. Albaran was based solely on the testimony of Ricardo, the petitioner and their son, Richardson. No personal evaluation was made as to the condition of Teresita to properly conclude that she is indeed inflicted with the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Conclusions and generalizations about Teresita’s psychological condition, based solely on information fed by Ricardo, are not any different in kind from admitting hearsay evidence as proof of the truthfulness of the content of such evidence.
Second, it was not proven that the condition of Teresita was present from the moment the marriage was celebrated. The only other party outside of the spouses who gave statements for purposes of Teresita’s psychological evaluation was Richardson, the spouses’ eldest son who would not have been very reliable as a witness in an Article 36 case because he could not have been there when the spouses were married and could not have been expected to know what was happening between his parents until long after his birth.
Finally, the contention of Ricardo that the root cause of the psychological incapacity need not be alleged in the petition is without merit. While in other cases, the court has allowed the petition to do away with the root cause, it is because the root cause has been described based on the physical manifestations which are indicative of the psychological incapacity. The statement of the root cause does not need to be in medical terms or be technical in nature, as the root causes of many psychological disorders are still unknown to science. It is enough to merely allege the physical manifestations constituting the root cause of the psychological incapacity. Hence, the statement of the root cause is a requirement that cannot be dispensed with but it may be proven either by an express statement or through the description of its physical manifestations.
