IWASAWA VS GANGAN GR 204169

FACTS: Petitioner, a Japanese national, met private respondent sometime in 2002 in one of his visits to the Philippines. Private respondent introduced herself as “single” and “has never married before.” Since then, the two became close to each other. Later that year, petitioner came back to the Philippines and married private respondent on November 28, 2002 in Pasay City. After the wedding, the couple resided in Japan. In July 2009, petitioner noticed his wife become depressed. Suspecting that something might have happened in the Philippines, he confronted his wife about it. To his shock, private respondent confessed to him that she received news that her previous husband passed away. Petitioner sought to confirm the truth of his wife’s confession and discovered that indeed, she was married to one Raymond Maglonzo Arambulo and that their marriage took place on June 20, 1994. This prompted petitioner to file a petition for the declaration of his marriage to private respondent as null and void on the ground that their marriage is a bigamous one.

ISSUE: W/N the marriage of petitioner and respondent is bigamous

RULING: YES. This Court has consistently held that a judicial declaration of nullity is required before a valid subsequent marriage can be contracted; or else, what transpires is a bigamous marriage, which is void from the beginning as provided in Article 35(4) of the Family Code of the Philippines. And this is what transpired in the instant case. As correctly pointed out by the OSG, the documentary exhibits taken together concretely establish the nullity of the marriage of petitioner to private respondent on the ground that their marriage is bigamous. The exhibits directly prove the following facts: ( 1) that private respondent married Arambulo on June 20, 1994 in the City of Manila; (2) that private respondent contracted a second marriage this time with petitioner on November 28, 2002 in Pasay City; (3) that there was no judicial declaration of nullity of the marriage of private respondent with Arambulo at the time she married petitioner; (3) that Arambulo died on July 14, 2009 and that it was only on said date that private respondent's marriage with Arambulo was deemed to have been dissolved; and ( 4) that the second marriage of private respondent to petitioner is bigamous, hence null and void, since the first marriage was still valid and subsisting when the second marriage was contracted.