Legal, not medical, sense

This is another case of annulment of marriage due to psychological incapacity of spouse. The main question raised here refers to the quantum of proof required to declare the marriage null and void because of psychological incapacity.

This is the case of Ana and Gerry, who were classmates during their fourth-year high school and eventually became sweethearts. After graduation, Ana found work and started living with Gerry at that time. Gerry’s parents were fond of Ana because she was hardworking and the breadwinner of the family. However, when she became pregnant, things changed because she stopped working.

After Ana gave birth, her mother convinced her that she and Gerry should get married already. So Ana and Gerry got married before a Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge. Ana spent for their wedding as well as the child’s baptismal expenses because Gerry was unemployed and did not contribute a single centavo. Eventually Ana lost contact with Gerry when she and her child moved to another town with her mother.

About seven years after their marriage, Ana filed a petition before the RTC on her town for declaration of nullity of her marriage to Gerry pursuant to Article 36 of the Family Code (FC), alleging that Gerry was psychologically incapacitated to comply with all the essential marital obligations. She averred that Gerry showed complete lack of understanding of the duties and responsibilities of a husband and father during their marriage. He never worked and only depended on his older siblings for financial support. And despite not earning, he spent more of his time and money on gambling and going to cockfights instead of taking care of his family.

After due notice and service of summons, only Ana appeared. The Assistant Provincial Prosecutor, on the other hand, manifested that she was not in a position to conclude that collusion existed between the parties due to Gerry’s absence, although she undertook to actively participate in the proceeding to ensure that the evidence is not fabricated.

During the trial, Ana testified together with the psychologist Dr. Ramos, who affirmed the contents of the judicial affidavits. Dr. Ramos attested that she based her findings on the narrations of Ana because Gerry failed to respond to her request for psychological test. She found Gerry with narcissistic personality disorder, anti-social and dependent traits characterized by an overwhelming and grandiose sense of self-importance which was grave and incurable, rendering him incapacitated to perform his marital obligations.

Dr. Ramos traced back the roots of Gerry’s disorder to his childhood upbringing by his family’s atmosphere and environmental influence, which largely contributed to the development of a family values system, characterized by absence of discipline and respect for others.

The RTC granted Ana’s petition and declared her marriage to Gerry as null and void on the ground of Gerry’s psychological incapacity to perform his essential marital obligations under Article 36, of the FC.

On appeal, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) contended that Gerry’s shortcomings as a father and husband do not amount to complete inability and utter insensibility on his part to fulfill his essential marital obligations. Moreover, the OSG contended that Ana also failed to identify and duly prove Gerry’s psychological incapacity or that such incapacity existed prior to the marriage. The OSG also pointed out that Dr. Ramos did not personally examine Gerry and only relied on the partial and biased narrations of Ana.

The Court of Appeals (CA) granted the appeal of the OSG and set aside the ruling of the RTC, dismissing the petition for lack of merit and declared that Ana and Gerry’s marriage is valid and subsisting. Was the CA correct?

The Supreme Court ruled that the CA is correct and affirmed its decision. According to the SC, Article 36 of the FC dictates that psychological incapacity must be characterized by (1) gravity such that the party would be incapable of carrying out the ordinary duties required of a marriage;(2) it must be rooted in the history of the party antedating the marriage, although the overt manifestation may emerge only after the marriage (juridical antecedent); (3) it must be incurable or even if curable, the cure would be beyond the means of the party involved (incapability). Personal examination of a party’s psychological incapacity is not always mandatory as long as the totality of the evidence is sufficient to sustain a finding of psychological incapacity, but the petitioner bears a greater burden of showing gravity, juridical antecedence and incurability.

Under Article 36 of the FC, psychological incapacity is not in the medical sense but in the legal sense. It must be so enduring and persistent with respect to a specific partner, that the only result of the marital union would be inevitable and irreparable breakdown of the marriage. Ultimately the totality of the evidence must support the finding of psychological incapacity.

Ana’s testimony failed to prove their irreconcilable differences, sexual infidelity or perversion. Emotional immaturity and irresponsibility and the like do not by themselves prove the existence of psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the FC. The totality of evidence must support a finding of psychological incapacity.

In this case, the testimony of Ana and Dr. Ramos and the latter’s psychological report do not support the allegations of Gerry’s psychological incapacity even if the court commiserates with Ana’s plight. So the decision of the CA is hereby affirmed (Solidium vs. CA G.R 213954, April 20, 2022).