Gianni de Munari, an Italian citizen, married Thelma, a Filipino citizen, in Italy in 2011. Their marriage was later registered with the Philippine Consulate in Milan.

Years later, Gianni discovered that before marrying him, Thelma had allegedly married another man in Bulacan in 1979. While that marriage was still subsisting, she allegedly married yet another man in Makati in 1991. Both husbands were reportedly still alive.

Believing that his own marriage was therefore bigamous, Gianni went to a Philippine court and asked that his marriage be declared void. The trial court dismissed the case without even hearing the evidence.

According to the court, because the marriage had been celebrated in Italy, Philippine courts supposedly had no jurisdiction to decide its validity. It also suggested that the case should have been filed by the Filipino spouse instead of the foreign husband.

Could a foreigner ask a Philippine court to declare his marriage to a Filipino void?

Yes, he can. The Court explained that Philippine Family Courts have jurisdiction over petitions for declaration of nullity of marriage. The fact that the marriage was celebrated abroad does not automatically deprive Philippine courts of authority to determine whether the marriage is void under Philippine law.

The Court distinguished between two different concepts. The formal validity of a marriage—such as the manner in which it was celebrated—is generally governed by the law of the country where the marriage took place.

However, the intrinsic validity of the marriage is a different matter. The Family Code expressly provides that certain marriages, including bigamous marriages, are void even if they were celebrated abroad. Filipino citizens remain bound by Philippine family law wherever they may be.

The Supreme Court also rejected the argument that only a Filipino spouse may file such a petition. The Rule on Declaration of Absolute Nullity of Void Marriages states that the petition may be filed solely by the husband or the wife. It does not distinguish between Filipino and foreign spouses.

Following the well-settled rule that where the law does not distinguish, courts should not distinguish, the Supreme Court held that a foreign husband has the legal standing to seek a declaration that his marriage to a Filipino spouse is void. The Court emphasized that denying this remedy would leave an innocent foreign spouse without any legal means to challenge a marriage that may have been void from the very beginning.

If the allegations of bigamy were true, the foreign spouse was entitled to seek judicial relief and restore his legal status. The Supreme Court, however, did not immediately declare the marriage void.

Instead, it ruled that the trial court had wrongly dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds. The case was therefore remanded to the Regional Trial Court so that the parties could present evidence and the issue of whether the marriage was indeed bigamous could be resolved on the merits.

De Munari v. Asprec. G.R. No. 262831, April 07, 2025