G.R.
No. 155800
LEONILO
ANTONIO, petitioner, vs. MARIE IVONNE F. REYES, respondent.
PONENTE: Justice Tinga
FACTS:
This is a Petition for Review on
Certiorari which assails the Decision and Resolution of the Court of Appeals
reversing the judgment of the Regional Trial Court of Makati declaring the
marriage of Leonilo Antonio, petitioner and Marie Ivonne F. Reyes, respondent,
null and void because according to the trial court, respondent’s fantastic
ability to invent and fabricate stories and personalities enabled her to live
in a world of make-believe. This made her psychologically incapacitated as it
rendered her incapable of giving meaning and significance to her marriage.
The facts were culled from the decision of
the Supreme Court.
Petitioner and
respondent met sometime in August 1989 and a year after their first meeting,
they got married before a minister at the Manila City Hall and through a church
wedding at Sta. Rosa de Lima Parish, Pasig, City. They begot a child who sadly
died five (5) months later.
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Petitioner filed a
petition to have his marriage to respondent declared nulled and void which was
anchored on Article 36 of the Family Code alleging that respondent was psychologically incapacitated to comply with
the essential obligations of marriage.
He asserted that respondent’s incapacity existed at the time their
marriage was celebrated and still subsists up to the present.
Respondent’s alleged
psychological incapacity as claimed by petitioner was manifested by respondent’s
persistent lying about herself, the people around her, her occupation, income,
educational attainment and other events or things. Petitioner her extreme jealousy as respondent
suspected her having an affair with another woman to the extent of calling up
his officemates to monitor his whereabouts.
He tried to attempt a reconciliation but since her behavior did not
change, he finally left her for good in November 1991.
Respondent opposed the petition claiming that
she performed her marital obligations by attending the needs of her
husband. She presented her version and asserted
that there was no truth to the allegations that she told lies, fabricated
stories and invented personalities.
Petitioner presented Dr. Abcede, a
psychiatrist, and Dr. Lopez, a clinical psychologist, who stated, based on the
tests they conducted, petitioner is essentially normal, introspective, shy and
conservative type of person. They
observed, on the other hand, that respondent’s constant lying to petitioner was
abnormal and pathological as it undermined the basic relationship that should
be based on love, trust and respect.
They concluded that respondent was psychologically incapacitated to
perform her essential marital obligations.
Respondent presented a psychiatrist, Dr.
Reyes and refuted the allegations anent her psychological condition. Dr. Reyes
testified that the series of tests conducted by his assistant together with the
screening procedures and the Comprehensive Psycho-Pathological Rating Scale
(CPRS) he himself conducted, led him to conclude that respondent was not
psychologically incapacitated to perform the essential marital obligations. He
postulated that regressive behavior, gross neuroticism, psychotic tendencies,
and poor control of impulses, which are signs that might point to the presence
of disabling trends, were not elicited from respondent.
In rebuttal, Dr. Lopez asseverated that there
were flaws in the evaluation conducted by Dr. Reyes as (1) he was not the one
who administered and interpreted respondent’s psychological evaluation, and (2)
he made use of only one instrument called CPRS which was not reliable because a
good liar can fake the results of such test.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the respondent’s persistent
lying constitutes psychological incapacity that could be a ground of the
nullity of her marriage to petitioner.
HELD:
The Supreme Court held that the root cause of respondent’s
psychological incapacity has been medically or clinically identified, alleged
in the complaint, sufficiently proven by experts, and clearly explained in the
trial court’s decision. The initiatory complaint alleged that respondent, from
the start, had exhibited unusual and abnormal behavior “of perennially telling
lies, fabricating ridiculous stories, and inventing personalities and
situations,” of writing letters to petitioner using fictitious names, and of
lying about her actual occupation, income, educational attainment, and family
background, among others.
The Supreme Court in
support with its decision cited that although what is held in Marcos v. Marcos,
343 SCRA 755 (2000), that personal examination of the subject by the physician
is not required for the spouse to be declared psychologically incapacitated,
the Supreme Court considered the methodology utilized by petitioner’s witnesses
as sufficient basis for their medical conclusions. Admittedly, Drs. Abcede and
Lopez’s common conclusion of respondent’s psychological incapacity hinged
heavily on their own acceptance of petitioner’s version as the true set of
facts. However, since the trial court itself accepted the veracity of
petitioner’s factual premises, there is no cause to dispute the conclusion of
psychological incapacity drawn therefrom by petitioner’s expert witnesses.
The Supreme Court reversed the decision and resolution of the Court of Appeals and
affirmed the decision of trial court instead.
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