The Supreme Court (SC) has acquitted a woman of bigamy after finding reasonable doubt over the validity of her first marriage, affirming that a void ab initio marriage may be raised as a defense in a bigamy case even without a prior judicial declaration of nullity.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa, the SC Third Division granted Ma. Fe Imelda Lapira y Tungol’s petition, reversed the Court of Appeals (CA), and acquitted her after finding that the prosecution failed to prove all the elements of bigamy.

“A judicial declaration of absolute nullity is not necessary to prove a void ab initio prior and subsequent marriages in a bigamy case,” the Court said, quoting its earlier en banc ruling in Pulido v. People.

FACTS AND ISSUE

The case stemmed from a bigamy complaint against Lapira over her April 17, 2001 marriage to Jimmy Fariscal in Guagua, Pampanga, while she was allegedly still married to Japanese national Takahiko Sato, whom records indicated she had married on Aug. 3, 2000 in Meycauayan, Bulacan.

Fariscal later discovered the earlier marriage through a certificate obtained from the Office of the Civil Registrar General and filed a complaint that led to a bigamy case against Lapira.

Lapira denied committing bigamy and challenged the validity of her supposed first marriage, arguing, among others, that it was void for lack of a marriage license. She presented evidence from the Imus civil registrar that its office had no record of an application for a marriage license by her and Sato.

The Regional Trial Court of Guagua convicted Lapira in 2015, ruling that she was still married to Sato when she married Fariscal and could not unilaterally declare the first marriage invalid to avoid prosecution.

The CA affirmed the conviction in 2017, finding all the elements of bigamy established and rejecting her defense because her first marriage had not been judicially declared void before the second marriage. It later denied her motion for reconsideration.

Before the SC, Lapira maintained that her first marriage was void for lack of a marriage license and invoked Pulido v. People, which abandoned earlier precedents requiring a judicial declaration of nullity before a void ab initio marriage could be raised as a defense in a bigamy case.

The issue before the SC was whether Lapira was guilty of bigamy under Article 349 of the Revised Penal Code.

RULING

The SC granted Lapira’s petition, ruling that she could challenge the validity of her first marriage in the bigamy case without first securing a judicial declaration of nullity.

Citing Pulido, the Court explained that a prior valid marriage is an essential element of bigamy. If the supposed first marriage is void ab initio, it is considered inexistent from the beginning and an element of the crime is lacking.

The Court clarified, however, that when the first marriage is merely voidable, an accused cannot invoke an annulment decree as a defense because the marriage was valid and subsisting when the subsequent marriage was contracted.

The SC found that Lapira sufficiently supported her claim that the first marriage was void for lack of a marriage license through a certification from the Imus civil registrar stating that it had no record of an application for a marriage license by her and Sato.

The certification also rebutted the evidentiary presumption in favor of the marriage certificate primarily relied upon by the prosecution to establish the prior marriage, the Court held.

“There being no other proof of the validity of the marriage between Takahiko and Imelda, then there is reasonable doubt as to the existence of a prior marriage, which is one of the elements of Bigamy,” the Court said.

The SC concluded that the prosecution failed to prove all the elements of bigamy beyond reasonable doubt, reversed and set aside the CA ruling, and acquitted Lapira.

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