TENEBRO v. COURT OF APPEALS [G.R. No. 150758, February 18, 2004]

 CASE DIGEST

TENEBRO v. COURT OF APPEALS

[G.R. No. 150758, February 18, 2004]

EN BANC, YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.

 

Bigamy; Article 349, Revised Penal Code; Psychological Incapacity; Article 36, Family Code; Void Marriage; Legal Effects of a Void Marriage; Judicial Declaration of Nullity; Proof of a Prior Marriage; Public Documents; Indeterminate Sentence

 

Bigamy is committed by the mere act of contracting a second or subsequent marriage while a prior valid marriage subsists; criminal liability attaches at the moment the second marriage is celebrated and is not erased by a later judicial declaration that the second marriage is void. Even a marriage subsequently declared void ab initio for psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code is not without legal effects — children conceived or born before the judgment of absolute nullity remain legitimate — and among the legal consequences a spouse incurs by contracting such a marriage is criminal liability for bigamy. To require a final judgment of nullity of the second marriage as a condition of liability would permit a person to marry deliberately a second time, secure a declaration of nullity, and thereby escape punishment. Proof of a subsisting first marriage may rest on a certified marriage contract, a public document entitled to full faith absent proof that it is spurious or irregularly executed, notwithstanding a negative certification from the civil registry.

 

Petitioner Veronico Tenebro married Hilda Villareyes on November 10, 1986 at the Manila City Hall. He cohabited with her from 1984 to 1988 and fathered two children with her. 

On April 10, 1990, while the marriage to Villareyes subsisted, Tenebro married private complainant Leticia Ancajas before a judge of the City Trial Court of Lapu-Lapu City. The couple cohabited continuously until late 1991. 

On January 25, 1993, Tenebro contracted a third marriage, to Nilda Villegas, solemnized by a judge of the Regional Trial Court of Cebu City. 

The second marriage — to Ancajas — was later declared null and void ab initio on the ground of psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code, by Decision dated November 20, 1995. Tenebro invoked that declaration to escape criminal liability. 

Ancajas charged Tenebro with bigamy. The Regional Trial Court of Lapu-Lapu City, on November 10, 1997, convicted him under Article 349 of the Revised Penal Code and imposed an indeterminate penalty of four (4) years and two (2) months of prisión correccional as minimum to eight (8) years and one (1) day of prisión mayor as maximum. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Tenebro elevated the case to the Supreme Court, which resolved it En Banc.

 

 

Whether a subsequent judicial declaration that the second marriage is void for psychological incapacity extinguishes criminal liability for bigamy already incurred.

NO. The Court held that a declaration of the nullity of the second marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity is of absolutely no moment insofar as the State's penal laws are concerned. Bigamy is consummated the moment the second marriage is celebrated while the first subsists; the elements are complete at that point, and a subsequent civil-law nullification does not relate back so as to erase a completed criminal act. 

The Court warned that a contrary rule would allow a person to deliberately marry a second time, have that marriage annulled, and thereby escape punishment — defeating the statute's purpose of protecting the institution of marriage.

 

 

Whether a marriage void for psychological incapacity nonetheless produces legal effects relevant to penal liability.

YES. The Court held that said marriage is not without legal effects. Among these effects is that children conceived or born before the judgment of absolute nullity of the marriage shall be considered legitimate. It concluded that among these legal consequences is incurring criminal liability for bigamy — the act of contracting the void second marriage itself gives rise to the penal consequence, even though the marriage confers no valid civil status between the spouses.

 

 

Whether the prosecution sufficiently proved the existence and subsistence of the first marriage.

YES. The prosecution presented a certified copy of the marriage contract between Tenebro and Villareyes dated November 10, 1986, together with a handwritten letter from Villareyes attesting to the marriage. The defense's negative certifications from the National Statistics Office and the local civil registry were held insufficient to overcome the marriage contract, a public document entitled to a presumption of regularity absent proof that it was spurious or improperly executed.

 

 

Whether Article 349 penalizes the mere act of contracting a second marriage during the subsistence of a valid prior marriage, regardless of the second marriage's ultimate civil validity.

YES. A plain reading of the provision indicates that it penalizes the mere act of contracting a second or a subsequent marriage during the subsistence of a valid marriage. The gravamen of the offense is the act of marrying again while validly married — not whether the second union could later withstand a civil-law challenge to its validity.

 

DISPOSITION: The Petition was DENIED and the Decision of the Court of Appeals AFFIRMED IN TOTO, sustaining the conviction and the indeterminate penalty of four (4) years and two (2) months of prisión correccional as minimum to eight (8) years and one (1) day of prisión mayor as maximum. Separate opinions: Vitug, J. (separate opinion, joined by Puno, J.); Carpio, J. (dissenting, joined by Austria-Martinez, Carpio-Morales and Tinga, JJ.); Callejo, Sr., J. (separate dissent); and Quisumbing, J., who joined the dissent.

 

DOCTRINAL STATUS — MODIFIED

 

This ruling has been overtaken in part. In Pulido v. People, G.R. No. 220149, July 27, 2021 (En Banc, Hernando, J.), the Court abandoned the line requiring a prior judicial declaration of nullity and held that a void ab initio subsequent marriage may now be raised as a defense in a bigamy prosecution without a separate declaration.

 

Tenebro is not wholly superseded. Under Pulido, a second marriage that is void only because it is bigamous still cannot be used as a defense — which preserves the practical result in cases of this type. What no longer holds is Tenebro's broader premise that a subsequent declaration of nullity of the second marriage is categorically “of absolutely no moment insofar as the State's penal laws are concerned.” Read Tenebro today together with Pulido, and note that four Justices dissented even in 2004.


CLICK HERE TO READ FULL TEXT