Issues:

1. Whether or not the Regional Trial court erred in ruling that Josefas psychological
incapacity was sufficiently established, which led to the declaration of marriage as null
and void.
2. Whether or not Antisocial Personality Disorder constitutes psychological incapacity,
which is a ground for annulment of marriage.

Arguments:
1. The RTC is correct in ruling that the marriage was null and void on the ground of
psychological incapacity. Under Article 36 of the Family Code of the Philippines, a marriage
contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was psychologically incapacitated to
comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall likewise be void even if such
incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization. The landmark case of Republic of the
Philippines vs. CA and Molina provides the following guidelines in interpreting and applying the
abovementioned provision:
a. The burden of proof to show the nullity of the marriage belongs to the plaintiff.
Burden of proof has been sufficiently complied with by the petitioner when psychological
incapacity was alleged in the first complaint filed in the RTC, with the decision of the latter
ruling on the nullity of marriage of Josefa and Pedro. A medical report by a psychiatrist,
corroborated with factual evidences and the herein guidelines, was presented by the petitioner.
b. The root cause of the psychological incapacity must be: (1) medically or clinically
identified; (2) alleged in the complaint; (3) sufficiently proven by experts; and (4) clearly
explained in the decision.
Through a character analysis and series of interviews conducted with the witnesses and
petitioner, Josefas psychological incapacity have been medically and clinically identified by an
expert, Dr. Rabuko.
It shall be noted however that:
There is no requirement that the defendant/respondent spouse should be personally examined by
a physician or psychologist as a condition sine qua non for the declaration of nullity of marriage
based on psychological incapacity. Such psychological incapacity, however, must be established
by the totality of the evidence presented during the trial. [Marcos v. Marcos, G.R. No. 136490,
October 19, 2000; Republic vs Iyoy, G.R. No. 152577, September 21, 2005]
In the case at bar, Dr. Rabuko clearly explained in his medical report the symptoms that support
his diagnosis of an Antisocial Personality Disorder of Josefa, specifically pervasive lying,
extramarital affairs and alcohol and drug abuse without remorse. These characterize the inability
to conform to the social norms that ordinarily govern many aspects of a persons adolescence and
adult behavior. Those with this disorder, according to the report, do not tell the truth and cannot
be trusted to carry out any task or adhere to any conventional standard of morality. Individuals
with this kind of disorder lack remorse for their actions, that is, they appear to lack a conscience.
c. The incapacity must be proven to be existing at the time of the celebration of the
marriage.
d. The incapacity must also be shown to be medically or clinically permanent or incurable.

It has also been concluded in the examination that the respondents personality disorder has been
present for a long period of time as early as adulthood, even before the celebration of their
marriage. This personality disturbance has been formed during the course of personality
development. Recovery from said personality disorder is almost next to impossible since it is
pervasive, unchanging and of enduring in nature. Josefas illness is considered incurable because
people with this kind of personality disorder are far more likely to refuse psychiatric help and to
deny their problems. How would one cure a behavorial and personality disorder when the person
himself is not fully aware of his own actions? Psychotherapy has not been effective for people
with the Antisocial Personality Disorder since they dont feel they are sick nor have anxiety with
their personality and behavior. Further, it would be also impossible to cure a person who is
absent, a person so distant as in residing abroad in Qatar and who denied her marital and parental
obligations in the first place. To what betterment would she allow herself change in the first
place? Thus, we contend that the illness is incurable.
e. Such illness must be grave enough to bring about the disability of the party to assume the
essential obligations of marriage.
f. The essential marital obligations must be those embraced by Arts. 68-71 of the Family
Code as regards husband and wife, and Arts. 220-225, same Code, in regard to parents
and their children.
Josefas illness has been shown to be grave enough to bring about the disability to assume the
essential obligations of marriage. Promiscuity, spouse abuse, and drunkenness are the common
events of the lives of petitioner and respondent. Because individuals with the personality disorder
lack remorse for their actions and appear to lack conscience, Josefa would never feel guilt at any
point of time in their marriage. Persons with the disorder can often seem to be normal and even
charming, but beneath their masks of sanity, there is hostility, irritably, and rage. The recurring
incidents of promiscuity, abuse, and drunkenness without any sign of remorse brings about a
downright incapacity or inability of Josefa to assume the essential obligations of marriage. In
other words, there is a natal or supervening disabling factor in the respondent, an adverse integral
element in her personality structure that effectively incapacitates her from really accepting and
thereby complying with the obligations essential to marriage. In the long run, this would also
create a hostile and unhealthy environment for their children, a situation that the state would like
to prevent in the first place.
Art. 220 of the Family Code provides that:
The parents and those exercising parental authority shall have with respect to their
unemancipated children or wards the following rights and duties: (1) To keep them in their
company, to support, educate and instruct them by right precept and good example, and to
provide for their upbringing in keeping with their means; (2) To give them love and affection,
advice and counsel, companionship and understanding; (3) To provide them with moral and
spiritual guidance, inculcate in them honestly, integrity, self-discipline, self-reliance, industry and

thrift, stimulate their interest in civic affairs, and inspire in them compliance with the duties of
citizenship; (4) To enhance, protect, preserve and maintain their physical and mental health at all
times; (5) To furnish them with good and wholesome educational materials, supervise their
activities, recreation and association with others, protect them from bad company, and prevent
them from acquiring habits detrimental to their health, studies and morals; (6) To represent them
in all matters affecting their interests; (7) To demand from them respect and obedience; (8) To
impose discipline on them as may be required under the circumstances; and (9) To perform such
other duties as are imposed by law upon parents and guardians.
In the case at bar, we find no justification of the respondent living abroad without the consent of
her spouse, based solely on her free will, and even without providing support and establishing
communication with her children. Her willfull abandonment of the family, extramarital affairs,
and alcohol and drug addiction, taken altogether with her psychologicsl incognizance of what is
wrong and right, is a complete manifestation of her incapacity to fulfill marital and parental
obligations. A serious incapacity for interpersonal sharing and support is held to impair the
relationship and consequently, the ability to fulfill the essential marital obligations. The marital
capacity of one spouse is not considered in isolation but in reference to the fundamental
relationship to the other spouse.
The last two guidelines on interpretations given by the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal
and on the active participation of the State, through the Solicitor General is no longer of
application to the case at this instance.
In the case at bar, the aforesaid Molina guidelines shall be applied with much regard for the law's
clear intention that each case is to be treated differently, as courts should interpret the provision
on a case-to-case basis; guided by experience, the findings of experts and researchers in
psychological disciplines, and by decisions of church tribunals.
In Ngo-Te vs. Yu-Te:
In hindsight, it may have been inappropriate for the Court to impose a rigid set of rules, as the
one in Molina, in resolving all cases of psychological incapacity. Understandably, the Court was
then alarmed by the deluge of petitions for the dissolution of marital bonds, and was sensitive to
the OSG's exaggeration of Article 36 as the "most liberal divorce procedure in the world."The
unintended consequences of Molina, however, has taken its toll on people who have to live with
deviant behavior, moral insanity and sociopathic personality anomaly, which, like termites,
consume little by little the very foundation of their families, our basic social institutions. Far
from what was intended by the Court, Molina has become a strait-jacket, forcing all sizes to fit
into and be bound by it. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Court, in conveniently applying Molina,
has allowed diagnosed sociopaths, schizophrenics, nymphomaniacs, narcissists and the like, to
continuously debase and pervert the sanctity of marriage. Ironically, the Roman Rota has
annulled marriages on account of the personality disorders of the said individuals.
In dissolving marital bonds on account of either party's psychological incapacity, the Court is not
demolishing the foundation of families, but it is actually protecting the sanctity of marriage,
because it refuses to allow a person afflicted with a psychological disorder, who cannot comply

with or assume the essential marital obligations, from remaining in that sacred bond. It may be
stressed that the infliction of physical violence, constitutional indolence or laziness, drug
dependence or addiction, and psychosexual anomaly are manifestations of a sociopathic
personality anomaly. Let it be noted that in Article 36, there is no marriage to speak of in the first
place, as the same is void from the very beginning. To indulge in imagery, the declaration of
nullity under Article 36 will simply provide a decent burial to a stillborn marriage.
2. Antisocial Personality Disorder is a condition considered as psychological incapacity.
Antisocial Personality Disorder shall be defined vis--vis the elements of psychological
incapacity.
In Santos v. Court of Appeals, it has been established that psychological incapacity must be
characterized by (a) Gravity - It must be grave or serious such that the party would be incapable
of carrying out the ordinary duties required in a marriage; (b) Juridical Antecedence - It must be
rooted in the history of the party antedating the marriage, although the overt manifestations may
emerge only after the marriage; and (c) Incurability - It must be incurable or, even if it were
otherwise, the cure would be beyond the means of the party involved.
Antisocial Personality Disorder, as medically defined by MayoClinic, is a type of chronic mental
condition in which a person's ways of thinking, perceiving situations and relating to others are
dysfunctional and destructive. People with antisocial personality disorder typically have no
regard for right and wrong and often disregard the rights, wishes and feelings of others. Those
with antisocial personality disorder tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others either harshly
or with callous indifference. They may often violate the law, landing in frequent trouble, yet they
show no guilt or remorse. Here we find basis that it is incurable for patients are never fully aware
of their misconduct, guiltless, and without remorse. They may lie, behave violently or
impulsively, and have problems with drug and alcohol use. These characteristics typically make
people with antisocial personality disorder unable to fulfill responsibilities related to family,
work or school. Here we find the element of gravity. And finally, personality disorders are
thought to be caused by a combination of these genetic and environmental influences. Some
people may have genes that make them vulnerable to developing antisocial personality disorder
and life situations may trigger its development. Here we find juridical antecedence.
Further:
In the case of Ngo-Te vs. Yu-Te, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the appellate court
and declared the marriage null and void on the ground of psychological incapacity. The
seriousness of the diagnosis and the gravity of the disorders considered, the Court, in this case,
finds as decisive the psychological evaluation made by the expert witness; and, thus, rules that
the marriage of the parties is null and void on ground of both parties' psychological incapacity.
The court made reference of the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders wherein Antisocial Personality Disorder is described as follows-

Characteristics include a consistent pattern of behavior that is intolerant of the conventional

behavioural limitations imposed by a society, disregard for the rights of others (either
through exploitiveness or criminal behavior), frequent physical fights and, quite commonly,
child or spouse abuse without remorse and a tendency to blame others. There is often a
facade of charm and even sophistication that masks disregard, lack of remorse for
mistreatment of others and the need to control others.
Given the facts of the case, we contend that Josefa manifested the DSMMDs definition of
Antisocial Personality Disorder and which was grave, incurable, and of juridical antecedence as
discussed earlier in the first argument. Her intolerance of the conventional behavorial limitations
imposed by the society, specifically her obligations as a wife and mother and her disregard for
the right of others, specifically that of her children and spouse brought about a consistent pattern
of exploitive and criminal behavior. Josefa has concealed from his husband among many others,
her several extramarital affairs and shabu and alcohol addiction. Promiscuity, spouse abuse,
and drunkenness are common events of their lives. All of these she would repeatedly commit
without remorse and guilt. And ultimately, in total intolerance of her societal role as a mother and
a spouse, she eloped in Qatar in 1994 with a paramour, with no sign of returning there
establishing no communication with her family at all.
Article 36 of the Family Code, we stress, is not to be confused with a divorce law that cuts the
marital bond at the time the causes therefor manifest themselves. It refers to a serious
psychological illness afflicting a party even before the celebration of the marriage. It is a malady
so grave and so permanent as to deprive one of awareness of the duties and responsibilities of the
matrimonial bond one is about to assume. [Alcazar vs. Alcazar, G.R. No. 174451, October 13,
2009 citing Marcos v. Marcos, G.R. No.136490, October 19, 2000]
The respondent, being afflicted with grave, severe, and incurable psychological illness identified
as Antisocial Personality Disorder, therefore cannot assume the essential marital and parental
obligations of marriage and family life. We wherefore pray that the decision of the RTC shall be
reinstated, that the marriage contracted by Pedro and Josefa is null and void.