Doomed from inception (Part 2)

The RTC declared the marriage of Chit and Alan void because said marriage from “its inception has a congenital infirmity termed ‘psychological incapacity’ which pertains to the inability of the parties to effectively function emotionally, intellectually and socially towards each other in relation to their essential duties to mutually observe love, fidelity and respect as well as to mutually render help and support”.

With respect to Alan, the RTC said that “there was already a fixed niche in his psychological constellation which created the death of his marriage”. He is “weaponless and powerless to restrain himself from his consistent behavior (of finding nothing wrong with his marriage and considering his relationship with Chit as normal) simply because he did not consider the same as wrongful”.

The RTC also declared that the “checkered life of the parties is not solely attributable to Alan. Chit, too, is to be blamed as she is also “afflicted with psychological incapacity because her personality cannot be harmonized with the personality of Alan. They are poles apart”.

In finding Alan psychologically incapacitated under Article 36 of the FC, the RTC relied heavily on the testimonies and reports of Clinical Psychologist, Dr. ND, the only one who personally examined Alan and who found that Alan is suffering from “Schizoid Narcissistic and Anti Social Personality Disorder”; Clinical Psychologist, Dr. EM who found Alan to be suffering from Ant-Social Personality Disorder with narcissistic and dependent features; and the psychiatrist Dr. CV who found Alan to be suffering from Personality Disorder of the anti-social type associated with the strong case of inadequacy especially along masculine strivings and narcissistic features”.

The Court of Appeals (CA) however reversed the RTC decision and declared Alan and Chit’s marriage valid and subsisting. The CA said that neither clinical psychologist Dr. EM nor psychiatrist Dr. CV conducted a personal, psychological examination of Alan. They only based their reports and testimonies on the interview of Chit and the information given by Alan’s son, siblings and sister-in-law as well as Chit’s sister-in-law. Hence their assessment and conclusion are hearsay, “unscientific and unreliable” as they have no personal knowledge of the condition of Alan.

With respect to the recommendation and report of Dr. ND who conducted a personal examination of Alan, the CA said that the assessment procedures used, the behavioral observations made, background information gathered and conclusion arrived at, is that there is a way to help Alan through individual therapy and counseling sessions. His failure to give support, substance abuse, infidelity and “come and go” attitude, even if true, fall short of establishing his psychological incapacity. These defects were not present at the inception of marriage as they were able to live in harmony in the first few years of marriage which bore them two children.

The psychological incapacity of Chit on the other hand was never raised in her petition, In fact she prayed for the declaration of nullity of their marriage on the ground of the psychological incapacity of Alan only, the CA ruled. Was the CA correct?

No. The lack of personal examination and interview of Alan or any person diagnosed with personality disorder does not per se invalid the testimonies of the doctors. Neither do their findings automatically constitute hearsay that would result in their exclusion as evidence.

For one, marriage, by its very definition, necessarily involves only two persons. The totality of the behavior of one spouse during cohabitation is generally and genuinely witnessed mainly by the other. In this case the experts testified on their individual assessment of the present state of the parties’ marriage, from the perception of Chit, one of the parties to the marriage. Certainly Chit had occasion to interact with and experience Alan’s pattern of behavior which she could then validly relay to the doctors.

For another, the doctors’ assessments were not based solely on the narration or personal interview of Chit. Other informants such as the other relatives of Alan testified about their own observations of Alan’s behavior and interactions with them, spanning the period of time they knew him. With their acknowledged field of expertise, doctors can diagnose the psychological make-up of a person based on a number of factors culled from various sources. A person afflicted with personality disorders will not necessarily have personal knowledge thereof. In this case, considering the personality disorder is manifested in a pattern of behavior, self diagnosis by Alan consisting only in his bare denial of the doctors’ diagnoses, does not evoke credence and cannot trump the clinical findings of experts.

The CA is also mistaken in declaring that Alan’s psychological incapacity is curable because Dr. ND recommended that he undergo therapy. A recommendation for therapy does not automatically imply curability. Therapy is generally recommended by clinical psychologists or even psychiatrist to manage behavior. Moreover Dr. ND herself testified that Alan is psychologically incapacitated to perform the essential marital obligations.

But even without the experts’ opinions the narrative of events established during the trial all point to the inevitable conclusion that Alan’s pattern of behavior and anti-social personality disorder manifest an inability, nay, psychological incapacity to perform the essential marital obligation as shown by his: (1) sporadic financial support; (2) extramarital affairs; (3) substance abuse; (4) failed business attempts; (5) unpaid money obligations; (6) inability to keep a job that is not connected with the family businesses; and (7) criminal charges for estafa.

The CA decision should therefore be reversed and set aside and the RTC decision declaring the marriage between Chit and Alan null and void, reinstated (Camacho-Reyes vs. Reyes, G.R. 185286, August 18, 2010, 628 SCRA 461).

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