Almelor v.
RTC of Las Pinas City
Facts:
 MANUEL and LEONIDA were married in January 1989.
 LEONIDA filed a petition for annulment on the ground of
psychological incapacity
 Allegations of LEONIDA:
 She first met MANUEL in 1981, in a hospital where they
worked as medical student clerks. Three years after, they
got married.
 LEONIDA averred that MANUEL’s kind and gentle
demeanor did not last long. In public, MANUEL was a
perfect husband and father, but this was not the case in their
private life.
 MANUEL was a harsh disciplinarian, unreasonably
meticulous and easily angered.
 MANUEL’s deep attachment to his mother and his
dependence on her decision-making were
incomprehensible to LEONIDA.
 LEONIDA alleges that MANUEL concealed his
homosexuality
1. Her suspicions were first aroused when she noticed
MANUEL’s particular closeness to his male
companions.
2. LEONIDA caught MANUEL in an indiscreet
telephone conversation manifesting his affection for a
male caller
3. LEONIDA found several pornographic homosexual
materials in MANUEL’s possession.
4. LEONIDA’s fears were confirmed when she saw
MANUEL kiss man on the lips, a certain Dr.
Nograles.
 Dr. del Fonso Garcia was presented to prove LEONIDA’s
claims:
 She conducted evaluative interviews and a battery of
psychiatric tests on LEONIDA.
 She concluded that MANUEL is psychologically
incapacitated and that it is marked by antecedence; it
existed even before the marriage and appeared to be
incurable.
MANUEL countered that the true cause of LEONIDA’s hostility
against him was professional rivalry:
 It began when MANUEL failed to heed to order from Christ
the King, a hospital owned by LEONIDA’s family, to desist
from converting his own lying-in clinic to primary or
secondary hospital.
 MANUEL denied maltreating the children, at most he only
imposed the necessary discipline on the children.
 MANUEL said there is nothing wrong for him to return the
love and affection of the person who reared and looked after
him and his siblings.
 LEONIDA has a very jealous and possessive nature, which
allegedly drove MANUEL to avoid the company of female
friends.
 MANUEL introduced his brother as witness as to the generally
harmonious relationship between MANUEL and LEONIDA.
RTC ruling:
 The marriage was declared null and void, not on the ground of
Article 36 but under Article 45.
 Both legally and biologically, homosexuality is indeed
generally incompatible with heterosexual marriage. This is
the reason why in our jurisdiction the law recognizes
marriage as a special contract exclusively only between a
man and a woman.
 When homosexuality trespassed into the marriage, the law
provides remedies to correct the situation.
Issue:
Whether concealment of homosexuality is the proper ground to
annul a marriage.
Ruling:
Concealment of homosexuality is the proper ground to annul a
marriage, and not the homosexuality per se.
The Court said that LEONIDA attempted to demonstrate were
MANUEL’s homosexual tendencies citing overt acts generally
predominant among homosexual individuals.
 LEONIDA wanted to prove that the perceived homosexuality
of MANUEL rendered him incapable of fulfilling the essential
marital obligations.
The RTC granted the annulment on the basis of vitiated
consent by virtue of fraud:
 According to the RTC, when there is smoke there is fire. There
is preponderant evidence to establish with certainty that
MANUEL is really a homosexual.
 In fact, before the marriage, MANUEL knew very well that
people around him even including his own close friends
doubted his true sexual preference.
 Overt acts of MANUELA pointing to his homosexuality:
 He is meticulous over even small details in the house like
wrongly folded bed sheets
 If a man is more authoritative in knowing what clothes or
jewelry shall fit his wife
 That he showed he had extra fondness of male friends to the
extent that twice on separate occasions he was seen by
LEONIDA kissing another man lips-to-lips
 The homosexual magazines and tapes allegedly discovered
underneath his bead.
HOWEVER, there is no sufficient proof that was presented to
substantiate the allegations that MANUEL is a homosexual
AND that he concealed this to LEONIDA at the time of their
marriage.
 The considered the public perception of MANUEL’s sexual
preference without the corroboration of witnesses.
 However, even assuming, for the sake of argument, that
MANUEL is a homosexual, the RTC cannot appreciate this
alone as a ground to annul the marriage with LEONIDA.
 The law is clear, a marriage may be annulled when the
consent of either party was obtained by fraud such as the
concealment of homosexuality..
 There was nothing in the decision of the RTC showing that
such homosexuality existed at the beginning of the marriage
AND that MANUEL concealed such fact from LEONIDA.
 It is the CONCEALMENT of homosexuality and not the
homosexuality itself that vitiates the consent of the innocent
party.
According to the deliberations of the law makers:
 Homosexuality as a ground for annulment and for legal
separation is different:
 For annulment, it must be concealed and existing at the time
of marriage. Here there is only concealment.
 For legal separation, it must have existed after the marriage.
Here there must be actuality.
Concealment is not simply a blanket denial, but one that is
constitutive of fraud. It is this fundamental element that
LEONIDA failed to prove.
 In the Philippines, homosexuality and its alleged
incompatibility to a healthy heterosexual life are not
sanctioned as grounds to sever the marriage bond in our
jurisdiction.
 It is only a ground to separate from bed and board.
 Burden of proof to show the nullity of the marriage was on
LEONIDA and unfortunately, she failed to discharge this
onus.

FINALLY, the RTC was in error when it rendered the

marriage a nullity and when it only considered the
homosexuality of MANUEL per se, but not of its concealment.