Tailspin of the ‘marriage scam’
This topic is not yet water under the bridge… As reported, suspended Judge Rosabella Tormis of MTCC Branch 4 has riposted that she and three others were in effect victims of "fixers". She also bewails her "entrapment" by the Supreme Court probe team, as if judges were common criminals.
She was referring to the probers who had posed as applicants for civil marriage before certain "Meloy" and "Helen", obviously employees of Branch 4 who apparently "sideline" as marriage "facilitators", and demanded P3T as marriage fee.
The question is: Could the suspended judges play coy and imperturbable, like the proverbial "no see, no hear" monkey, about the court personnel doubling as marriage "facilitators"? Besides, by the number of exceptional marriages - 280 for two years for 4 court branches - under Article 34 of the Family Code, feigning ignorance of the alleged "lucrative" practice among court employees is incredible even to the credulously naïve.
Marriage under Article 34 is an exception to the basic requisite of a marriage license, in the same category as marriage in articulo mortis or at the point of death or similar specified cases. Hence, solemnizers of marriage, like judges, priests/ministers, city/municipal mayors, are mandated to execute their own affidavits, attesting that they themselves ascertained the claim of the allegedly cohabiting partners for at least 5 years, and without any legal impediment.
A deleterious aftermath for trifling with the sine qua non marriage license requisite is that the marriage is void ab initio, for its "diriment" impediment, as if no marriage from the start. Moreover, the falsifying parties are likewise criminally liable, including the solemnizing officer as well, aside from administrative sanctions against the latter.
Two other suspended judges have purportedly argued that officiating civil weddings isn't a judicial function but only ministerial, thus, no legal or factual basis for an administrative charge that led to their preventive suspension. If correctly reported, they posit that based on Palma vs. Fortich, 147 SCRA 397, solemnizing civil marriage being allegedly a non-judicial function, so they argue, will not give rise to a preventive suspension based on "misconduct in office".
Just for academic discussion… There is no call to invoke
The explosive issue undermines the collective integrity of the judiciary, and erodes the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Who knows that this issue hereabout is just the tip of the iceberg nationwide. If left unchecked, just imagine the sordid spectacle of fake marriages, say, with fake marriage license and falsified marriage contracts. It would thus spawn illegitimate children with bastardized civil status and bogus successional rights.
One isn't judgmental or biased against the beset respondents whose careers are placed in a crucible. For all it may turn out eventually, they or any of them could just, subjunctively speaking, be victims of circumstances engineered by scheming "facilitators", and/or acting in good faith just to accommodate the marriage applicants.
Whatever the final outcome be, it's hoped that justice be done in all fairness and reason. And perhaps mingled with some sprinkling of divine mercy.
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