CIVIL LAW REVIEW I
LECTURE SERIES
Articles 37 to 51,
New Civil Code
Articles 1 to 26, Family Code of the
Philippines
For: University of
San Agustin School of Law
General Luna Street,
Iloilo City
SY 2016-2017, 1st
Semester
By: Atty. Eduardo T. Reyes, III
Article
37.
II.
Juridical Capacity v. Capacity to Act
Juridical Capacity- the FITNESS to be the
subject of legal relations, is inherent in every natural person and is lost
only through death.
Capacity to Act- which is the POWER to
do acts with legal effect, is acquired and may be lost.
Restrictions on
Capacity to Act.
1) Minority
2) Insanity or
imbecility
3) The state of being a
deaf-mute;
4) Prodigality; and,
5) Civil Interdiction
Circumstances that
MODIFY or LIMIT Capacity to Act
1)
Age
2) Insanity
3) Imbecility
4) The state of being a
deaf-mute
5) Penalty
6) Prodigality
7) Family relations
8) Alienage
9) Absence
10) Insolvency; and
11)
Trusteeship
PERSONS
Natural
Persons. Birth determines personality.
Exception:
Presumptive personality. A conceived child shall be considered born for all purposes
that are favorable to it provided it be born alive.
For
civil purposes, the fetus (with intra-uterine life of at least seven months) is
considered born if it is alive at the time it is completely delivered from the
mother’s womb.
However,
if the fetus had an intra-uterine life of less than seven months- it is not
deemed born if it dies within twenty-four hours after its complete delivery
from the maternal womb.
BAR QUESTION (1999)- A donation is made in
favor of a fetus inside the mother’s womb. Is the donation valid? Discuss.
-
Quimiguing
v. Icao, 34 SCRA 132- Suit was filed for support of an unborn child which
resulted from seduction.
NEW FAMILY CODE (R.A. No. 6809, December 18, 1989).
Article 1. Marriage
is a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into
in accordance with the law for the establishment of conjugal and family life.
It is the foundation of the family and an inviolable social institution whose
nature, consequences, and incidents are governed by law and not subject to
stipulation, except that marriage settlements may fix the property relations
during the marriage within the limits provided by this Code.
-
No union is more
profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity,
devotion, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something
greater than once they were.”(Justice Anthony Kennedy (On Decision upholding
same-sex marriage in the United States).
·
Marriage
as a civil contract
·
Petitioner
filed for annulment of marriage on ground of “failure of consideration” because
he only wanted to give a name to the child in respondent’s womb, which however
was never born.
·
“It is not possible to have a marriage for one
purpose and no marriage at all for other purposes, for marriage is not only a
contract but a status and a kind of fealty to the State as well x x x”.[1]
·
Thus,
rules governing rescission of civil contracts do not obtain in the annulment of
marriage conundrum
·
The
reservations kept in the deep recesses of the heart of the spouse at the time
of entering into marriage are of no consequence for as long as he knows that
what he is entering into is a marriage
·
Art.
1351, NCC- “The particular motives of the
parties in entering into a contract are different from the cause thereof”.
·
Marriage
in jest v. Marriage for financial consideration
·
Republic v. Albios[2].
“limited-purpose marriage”. Marriage for convenience. For Immigration
purposes
·
“Motives for entering
into a marriage are varied and complex. The State does not and cannot dictate
on the kind of life that a couple chooses to lead. Any attempt to regulate
their lifestyle would go into the realm of their right to privacy and would
raise serious constitutional questions. The right to marital privacy allows
married couples to structure their marriages in almost any way they see fit, to
live together or live apart, to have children or no children, to love one
another or not, and so on. Thus, marriages entered into for other purposes,
limited or otherwise, such as convenience, companionship. Money, status and
title provided that they comply with all the legal requisites are equally
valid. Love, though the ideal consideration in a marriage contract, is not the
only valid cause for marriage.
Marriage is insulated
against:
Ø Discriminatory
policies such as: (1)terminating a female employee who contracts marriage
(PT&T v. NLRC, 272 SCRA 596) (2) PAL cases on female flight attendants
becoming pregnant
Ø Jealous wife rummages
through office files of husband and discovers damning evidence of infidelity.
(Zulueta v. Court of Appeals, 253SCRA 699).
Ø BUT, is there
something in the Constitution that prohibits Absolute divorce?
Ø In Sta. Barbara,
California, USA, a website was put-up for struggling college students who can
barely make it through college where they could post their profiles and find a
“sugar-daddy” who will finance their tuition in exchange for companionship and
sex.
Ø “States that attempt to close that loophole fail, says
Scott Cunningham, an Economics professor at Baylor University in Texas who has
studied prostitution markets. Proposed legislation against the practice might,
he says, inadvertently prohibit marriage- which could, after all, be defined as
intercourse for financial support”[3].
Article 2. No marriage shall be valid, unless these
essential requisites are present:
1)Legal capacity of the contracting parties who must be a
male and a female; and
2)Consent freely given in the presence of the solemnizing
officer.
Article 3. The formal requisites of marriage are:
1)Authority of the solemnizing officer;
2)A valid marriage license except in the cases provided
for in Chapter 2 of this Title; and
3)A marriage ceremony which takes place with the
appearance of the contracting parties before the solemnizing officer and their
personal declaration that they take each other as husband and wife in the
presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age.
Article 4. The absence of any of the essential or formal
requisites shall render the marriage void ab
initio, except as stated in Article 35 (2).
A defect
in any of the essential or formal requisites shall render the marriage voidable
as provided in Article 45.
An
irregularity in the formal requisites shall not affect the validity of the
marriage but the party or parties responsible for the irregularity shall be
civilly, criminally and administratively liable.
Article 5. Any male or female of the age of eighteen
years or upwards not under any of the impediments mentioned in Articles 37 and
38, may contract marriage.
Article 6. No prescribed form or religious rite for the
solemnization of the marriage is required. It shall be necessary, however, for
the contracting parties to personally appear before the solemnizing officer and
declare in the presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age that they
take each other as husband and wife. This declaration shall be contained in the
marriage certificate which shall be signed by the contracting parties and their
witnesses and attested by the solemnizing officer.
In case
of a marriage in articulo mortis,
when the party at the point of death is unable to sign the marriage
certificate, it shall be sufficient for one of the witnesses to the marriage to
write the name of said party, which facts shall be attested by the solemnizing
officer.
Article 7. Marriage may be solemnized by:
1) Any incumbent member of the judiciary within the
court’s jurisdiction;
x x x”
-
Marriage
must be between male and female. This is a statutory requirement, not
Constitutional
-
Effect of Sex Change
Congenital
Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH)
· Navarro v. Domagtoy, A.M. No. MTJ 06-1088, July 19, 1996
· “Where judge solemnizes a marriage outside his court’s
jurisdiction, there is a resultant irregularity in the formal requisite laid
down in Article 3 which while it may not affect the validity of the marriage
may subject the officiating official to administrative liability.”
· “Just an obiter-dictum. Non observance of this rule is
not a mere irregularity because it generally makes the marriage void”.
Article 22. The
marriage certificate, x x x”
-Proof of Marriage. Circado-Belison v. Circado, Jr. (2015)[6]
-Contrato Matrimonial issued by Church of Filipino
Independiente, Sec. 20, Rule 132- Is a private document
-Earlier baptismal certificate v. Later Certificate of
Marriage from Local Civil Registrar
Article 26. All
marriages solemnized outside the Philippines, in accordance with the laws in
force in the country where they were solemnized, and valid there as such, shall
also be valid in this country, except those prohibited under Articles 35 (1),
(4), (5) and (6), 36, 37 and 38.
Where a marriage between a Filipino
citizen and a foreigner is validly celebrated and a divorce is thereafter
validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating him or her to remarry,
the Filipino spouse shall likewise have capacity to remarry under Philippine
law.
Gen.
Rule- Lex Loci Celebrationes
Exception: nationality principle & Article
17 on Prohibitive Laws, and Articles 35
(1), (4), (5) and (6), 36, 37 and 38.
-
minor, bigamous marriage, mistake in identity, subsequent void marriage, psychological
incapacity, bigamous, incestuous marriages and contrary to public policy.
-
Mixed-Marriage
-
RECKONING
POINT. “For purposes of Article 26 therefore, the DETERMINATIVE POINT when the foreigner is at THE TIME OF THE DIVORCE
and not at the time of marriage”[7].
-
Dual
Citizen. “In the event that the former Filipino spouse who has been naturalized
as a foreign citizen decides to return to the Philippines and reacquire
Philippine citizenship, the divorce decree will still be recognized here
because at the time of the issuance of the decree of divorce and at the time of
the issuance of the decree of divorce, he or she was not a citizen of the
Philippines”[8].
-
May
the foreigner spouse avail of the benefits of the 2nd paragraph of
Article 26?
-
Hypotheticals:
1) X, an American; and
Y, a Filipino, got married. If X obtains a divorce decree abroad which
capacities him to remarry. May X file a petition to dissolve his marriage in
the Philippine courts?
2) A and B, both
Filipinos, are spouses. They emigrated to the US, embraced US citizenship and
there obtained a Divorce decree. A, the
husband, returns to the Philippines and meets and falls in love with a
Filipino. When he wanted to marry the Filipina, he presented the divorce decree
to the local civil registrar who refused to accept it and required him to
present a court order from a Philippine court which dissolves his marriage with
B before a marriage license will be issued. Is the Local Civil Registrar
correct?
3) In question No. 1, if
it is Y, the Filipino spouse, who will file the petition, what legal provision
should she invoke? In which court should she file her petition?
4) In question No. 2,
where will A file his petition? And what procedure will be applied by the court
once such petition is filed?
[1]
Prof. Sta. Maria, pp. 99-100 PERSONS AND FAMILY RELATIONS 2015 citing Bove v.
Pinciotti, 46 Pa D & C [C.P. 1942])
[2]
G.R. No. 198780, October 16, 2013
[3]
“Paying for College, A teaspoon of sugar”, See pp. 38-39, The Economist June 20th
2015
[4]
G.R. No. 174689, October 19, 2007
[5]
G.R. No. 166676, September 12, 2008
[6]
G.R. No. 185374, March 11, 2015
[7] P.
181, Prof. Sta Maria, Id. , citing
Republic v. Orbecido III, G.R. No. 154380, October 5, 2005
[8]
Prof. Sta. Maria, Ibid.
[9]
G.R. No. 186571, August 11, 2010
[10] G.R.
No. 155635/ 163979, November 7, 2008
[11]
G.R. No. 142820, June 20, 2003
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