Sunday, July 08, 2007 Couples ‘may be held liable too’
COUPLES who availed themselves of “coordinated marriages” at the Marcelo Fernan Hall of Justice may be held criminally liable and their marriage voided, an Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) official said.
He referred to those who tied the knot using Article 34 of the Family Code.
That provision allows the use of an affidavit that a couple has lived together for five years, instead of the marriage license usually required.
“Those who executed affidavits that they have been living in for five years even if they were not can be prosecuted for perjury, and if found guilty they will be serving years in jail,” said IBP-Cebu City chapter president Briccio Boholst.
He also said the couple, in their defense, can say they signed the affidavit without knowing they were committing perjury. “But the problem is how will they prove it? Still they can be prosecuted,” he said.
Boholst said that under the New Family Code, those marriages solemnized in the absence of requisites for marriage are considered null and void.
But while such marriages made under such circumstances are considered void, neither the husband nor the wife can enter into another marriage.
The state will continue to recognize their union until one of them asks for its nullity before the court.
“Because only the court can say if a marriage is void or not,” Boholst said.
Lawyer Rullyn Garcia, head of the Supreme Court team that came to Cebu to investigate allegations about civil marriages, agreed.
Fees
He said that until one party questions the legality of his or her marriage, it would be considered legal because of the “presumption of regularity.”
Dante (real name withheld upon request, for privacy’s sake) said that he paid P3,500 for his marriage that Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) Judge Edgemelo Rosales solemnized.
Dianne (real name withheld) also said she paid P2,500 for her marriage at the sala of MTCC Judge Rosabella Tormis sometime in 2004.
Like Dante, she signed an affidavit that she and her partner have lived together for five years, saying she did not know its implication because they were just made to sign the document by the court employees who arranged the marriage.
Both Dianne and Dante said they also knew that ignorance of the law excuses no one.
Same day
Dianne said she and her partner availed themselves of the coordinated marriage because she was about to give birth already.
“I went there at 11 a.m., presented my birth certificate, that of my partner, and the document from my parents giving me their blessings to enter into a marriage. I needed the so-called parents’ advice because I was only 21 years old. Afterwards, I was asked to pay P2,000…(without receiving an official receipt), and scheduled my wedding at 3 p.m. of the same day,” she said.
She said that court employees arranged everything for them; she saw the judge only during the ceremony, which lasted for about 20 minutes.
Dianne said that before her marriage, a couple was inside the judge’s chamber, and another went after them, apparently for the same purpose.
“There was even a standby photographer who charged P40 per picture,” she added.
Boholst said that they in the IBP were “very much surprised” by the preventive suspension that the Supreme Court imposed on Judges Alan Necesario, Gil Acosta, Rosabella Tormis and Edgemelo Rosales.
Boholst said they were concerned about its effect on the cases being heard in Branches 2, 3, 4 and 8.
Fixers
The IBP officials, though, believe that the MTCC executive judge is finding a way to solve this matter.
Aside from suspending the four judges, Chief Justice Reynato Puno also ordered the immediate filing of administrative complaints against them for corruption, gross ignorance of the law, and deliberate violation of the law of marriage.
Boholst said the so-called “fixers” should be also sanctioned.
In a radio interview, he raised the possibility that the judges did not know that the marriages they solemnized where coordinated, and that exorbitant fees were collected.
Former IBP president Democrito Barcenas also said that the judges may have been “sold” by their own staff or the court fixers. Barcenas said he heard talks about the exorbitant fees, but “nobody came out to execute an affidavit.”
“It would help in the investigation if any of the couples will talk,” he said.
The IBP is offering free legal assistance to those who want to press charges. (KNT)
