SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM v. TERESITA JARQUE VDA. DE BAILON
485 SCRA 376 (2006)
Where a person has entered into two successive marriages, a presumption arises in favor of the validity of the second marriage, and the burden is on the party attacking the validity of the second marriage to prove that the first marriage had not been dissolved.
Clemente G. Bailon and Alice P. Diaz contracted marriage. More than 15 years later, a Petition for Declaration of Presumptive Death has been filed before the Court of First Instance of Sorsogon, which has been granted. Bailon, subsequently, contracted marriage with respondent Teresita Jarque and designated her the Social Security System (SSS) beneficiary of the former.
SSS cancelled the claim of respondent Teresita Jarque of her monthly pension for death benefits on the basis of the opinion rendered by its legal department that her marriage with Bailon was void as it was contracted during the subsistence of Bailon’s marriage with Alice.
Teresita protested the cancellation of her monthly pension for death benefits asserting that her marriage with Bailon was not declared before any court of justice as bigamous or unlawful. Hence, it remained valid and subsisting for all legal intents and purposes.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the subsequent marriage of Clemente Bailon and respondent Teresita Jarque may terminate by mere reappearance of the absent spouse of Bailon
HELD:
The second marriage contracted by a person with an absent spouse endures until annulled. It is only the competent court that can nullify the second marriage pursuant to Article 87 of the Civil Code and upon the reappearance of the missing spouse, which action for annulment may be filed.
The two marriages involved herein having been solemnized prior to the effectivity on August 3, 1988 of the Family Code, the applicable law to determine their validity is the Civil Code which was the law in effect at the time of their celebration.
Under the Civil Code, a subsequent marriage being voidable, it is terminated by final judgment of annulment in a case instituted by the absent spouse who reappears or by either of the spouses in the subsequent marriage.
Under the Family Code, no judicial proceeding to annul a subsequent marriage is necessary. Thus Article 42 thereof provides the subsequent marriage shall be automatically terminated by the recording of the affidavit of reappearance of the absent spouse, unless there is a judgment annulling the previous marriage or declaring it void ab initio.
If the absentee reappears, but no step is taken to terminate the subsequent marriage, either by affidavit or by court action, such absentee‘s mere reappearance, even if made known to the spouses in the subsequent marriage, will not terminate such marriage. Since the second marriage has been contracted because of a presumption that the former spouse is dead, such presumption continues inspite of the spouse‘s physical reappearance, and by fiction of law, he or she must still be regarded as legally an absentee until the subsequent marriage is terminated as provided by law.
In the case at bar, as no step was taken to nullify, in accordance with law, Bailon‘s and Teresita‘s marriage prior to the former‘s death in 1998, Teresita is rightfully the dependent spouse-beneficiary of Bailon.
