The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that only the innocent spouse—not the one who consciously contracted a bigamous marriage—can petition to nullify it.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Ricardo R. Rosario, the SC En Banc denied a Filipina’s petition to declare her second marriage void on grounds of bigamy.

The petitioner had first married a Chinese national in Hong Kong and the Philippines. While working as a bank teller in Hong Kong, she had an affair with a Filipino client, later resigning and returning to the Philippines when she became pregnant. She then married her lover in the Philippines, and they had two children.

The Chinese husband was able to obtain a divorce in Hong Kong. It was recognized by a Parañaque court that ordered the dissolution of the first marriage.

Exactly 14 years later, she separated from her second husband and went back to court to secure an annulment of the second marriage. She insisted that since it was bigamous in the first place, she should be allowed to remarry.

Both the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals junked her petition, ruling that she had no legal standing since she was aware and was in fact a party to the bigamous marriage.

The petitioner went to the High Court, arguing that because her first marriage was already dissolved, she alone had the right to seek nullity of the second.

She also claimed that since her second marriage was void from the start, the SC had no choice but to declare it so.

In Rosario’s decision, the High Tribunal rejected her arguments, clarifying that only the aggrieved or innocent spouse from either marriage can seek annulment of the second marriage.

In this case, that right belonged to her first husband, but he lost it upon obtaining a divorce. It did not transfer to the petitioner, who was considered the guilty spouse.

While Article 35(4) of the Family Code declares that bigamous marriages are void from the beginning, a court declaration voiding remains a requirement for purposes of remarriage.

The SC emphasized that the goal of invalidating a bigamous marriage is to protect an existing legal union, not to dissolve one. Since the petitioner’s first marriage had already been dissolved, there was no legal union left to protect.

The SC also noted that the petitioner had benefited from her second marriage and waited 14 years to challenge it—not to uphold her first marriage, which no longer existed, but to gain the ability to remarry.

The ruling stressed that this cannot be allowed: “otherwise, it will give rise to a ridiculous situation (where) the party who contracted the illicit subsequent marriage is permitted to invoke (its) bigamous nature … to nullify the same… (B)igamy will be treated by the erring spouse as a matter of convenience.”

Finally, the SC clarified that denying the petition does not legalize the bigamous marriage. It remains void for all other legal purposes, including matters of inheritance and the legitimacy of children. The guilty spouse also remains subject to possible civil and criminal liability for bigamy.