CONFLICT OF LAWS | IMELDA M. PILAPIL V. HON. CORONA IBAY-SOMERA G.R. NO. 80116, JUNE 30, 1989

IMELDA M. PILAPIL V. HON. CORONA IBAY-SOMERA

G.R. NO. 80116, JUNE 30, 1989

 

TOPIC/DOCTRINE

The status of the complainant vis-a-vis the accused must be determined as of the time the complaint was filed. Thus, the person who initiates the adultery case must be an offended spouse, and by this is meant that he is still married to the accused spouse, at the time of the filing of the complaint.

 

FACTS

On September 7, 1979, petitioner Imelda Manalaysay Pilapil, a Filipino citizen, and private respondent Erich Ekkehard Geiling, a German national, were married before the Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Friedensweiler in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Thereafter, marital discord set in, with mutual recriminations between the spouses, followed by a separation de facto between them. On January 15, 1986, Division 20 of the Schoneberg Local Court, Federal Republic of Germany, promulgated a decree of divorce on the ground of failure of marriage of the spouses.

On June 27, 1986, or more than five months after the issuance of the divorce decree, private respondent filed two complaints for adultery before the City Fiscal of Manila alleging that, while still married to said respondent, petitioner “had an affair with a certain William Chia as early as 1982 and with yet another man named Jesus Chua sometime in 1983”

 

ISSUE

Whether private respondent being no longer the husband of petitioner has no legal standing to commence the adultery case.

 

RULING

No.

The court ruled that the status of the complainant vis-a-vis the accused must be determined as of the time the complaint was filed. Thus, the person who initiates the adultery case must be an offended spouse, and by this is meant that he is still married to the accused spouse, at the time of the filing of the complaint. Article 344 of the Revised Penal Code presupposes that the marital relationship is still subsisting at the time of the institution of the criminal action for adultery. In prosecutions for adultery and concubinage, the person who can legally file the complaint should be the offended spouse and nobody else.

Here, the court ruled that fact that private respondent obtained a valid divorce in his country is admitted and its legal effects may be recognized in the Philippines. Private respondent being no longer the husband of petitioner has no legal standing to commence the adultery case. There being no marriage from the beginning, any complaint for adultery filed after said declaration of nullity would no longer have a leg to stand on.







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