Ado-an-Morimoto vs. Morimoto

A marriage that is totally simulated, where the parties have no genuine intent to enter into marital relations and merely use it as a front to obtain illicit benefits, is void ab initio for the absolute lack of the essential requisite of consent.

Sometime before December 2007, a friend introduced petitioner Rosario D. Ado-an-Morimoto to respondent Yoshio Morimoto, a Japanese national. The introduction was made for the specific purpose of arranging a simulated marriage between them, which would serve as an artifice to facilitate Rosario's acquisition of a Japanese visa. The parties agreed to this arrangement with no intention of entering into a genuine marital relationship.

• On December 5, 2007, Rosario and Yoshio met at Manila City Hall and signed a blank marriage certificate, after being assured by the solemnizing officer that it would never be registered or recorded in the Civil Registry.
• This was the last time Rosario ever saw Yoshio.
• Sometime later, while trying to secure a Certificate of No Marriage from the Philippine Statistics Authority, Rosario discovered that a Certificate of Marriage had been registered.
• The certificate indicated that she and Yoshio were married on December 5, 2007, in San Juan City, in a ceremony officiated by a Reverend Roberto Espiritu, and that the marriage was based on Marriage License No. 6120159.
• During the trial for nullity, Rosario presented a certification dated June 4, 2009, from the Office of the Civil Registrar of San Juan City, which stated that "no record of Marriage License No. 6120159 was issued the parties."
• A Registration Officer from the San Juan City Civil Registrar's Office testified in court and authenticated the aforementioned certification.
• The Assistant City Prosecutor issued a report stating that there was no collusion between Rosario and Yoshio to obtain a favorable ruling.

• The registered marriage was totally fictitious and simulated, as no actual marriage ceremony took place and the parties had no genuine intent to enter into marital relations.
• The sole purpose of signing the marriage certificate was to create a document that would aid in the petitioner's application for a Japanese visa.
• The petitioner's admission of participating in a simulated marriage constitutes an admission against interest, which carries great evidentiary weight and proves the truth of her assertions.
• The marriage is void for lack of a formal requisite, as evidenced by the certification from the San Juan City Civil Registrar stating that no record of the marriage license exists.

• Procedural Issues:
  • Whether a certification from the local civil registrar stating that there is "no record" of a specific marriage license is sufficient proof of its non-issuance for the purpose of declaring a marriage void.
• Substantive Issues:
  • Whether a marriage that is totally simulated by the parties, who have no bona fide intention of fulfilling marital obligations and entered into it only for an ulterior purpose, is void ab initio for lack of consent.
  • Whether the absence of a valid marriage license renders the registered marriage void ab initio.

• Procedural:
  • Yes, the certification from the Office of the Civil Registrar of San Juan City stating that it has "no record" of the specified marriage license is sufficient evidence of its non-issuance. The Court held that it has abandoned the inordinately stringent application from Sevilla v. Cardenas and affirmed that under Rule 132, Section 28 of the Rules of Court, such a certification enjoys probative value. The presumption of regularity in the performance of official duties applies, meaning it is presumed that the certifying officer conducted a diligent search.
• Substantive:
  • Yes, the marriage is void ab initio for being totally simulated. The Court found that there was a complete absence of the essential requisite of consent because the parties never had a genuine intent to enter into marital relations. Their "consent" was merely for the purpose of creating a fraudulent document to obtain a visa, not to become husband and wife. The Court also ruled that the marriage is void ab initio for lacking the formal requisite of a valid marriage license, as established by the certification from the civil registrar. To uphold such a fake marriage would be a greater affront to the institution than declaring it void.

• Simulated Marriage as Void for Lack of Consent — A marriage is considered a special contract requiring consent. When parties enter into a marriage with no bona fide intention of becoming spouses and do so merely as a ruse for an ulterior purpose, the marriage is totally simulated and fictitious. This lack of genuine intent equates to a total absence of consent, an essential requisite under the Family Code, rendering the marriage void ab initio.
• Admission Against Interest — This doctrine holds that a declaration made by a party that is contrary to their own interest is presumed to be true and is admissible as evidence with high probative value. The Court applied this by giving great credence to the petitioner's admission of participating in a fraudulent scheme to simulate a marriage, as this admission exposed her to potential criminal liability for falsification, making it unlikely she would make such a statement if it were not true.
• Proof of Lack of Record — A written statement from an officer having custody of an official record, certifying that after a search no record or entry of a specified tenor is found to exist, is admissible as evidence that the records contain no such record or entry. The Court affirmed that a certification from a local civil registrar stating "no record" of a marriage license is sufficient to prove its non-issuance, without needing an explicit declaration that a "diligent search" was conducted, due to the presumption of regularity in official duties.

• "A simulated marriage used as a front for illicitly obtaining benefits is totally inexistent, as the parties to it have no genuine intent to enter into marital relations. Courts must recognize such a marriage as void. To insist on its validity is to enable a greater affront to the institution of marriage than the perceived dangerous tendency of readily declaring it null."
• "This Court most certainly does not condone petitioner's ruse. But it will work greater damage to society and its institutions if courts would let themselves be used as unsuspecting endorsers of duplicitous designs. The original, underlying fraud here is the stratagem effected by petitioner and respondent Yoshio in simulating marriage. It is a fraud admitted by petitioner, and a fraud through which this Court sees."

• Republic v. Court of Appeals and Castro — Cited as the controlling precedent establishing that a certification from a civil registrar of "due search and inability to find" a marriage license is sufficient proof of its non-issuance. The Court followed the wisdom of this case.
• Kho v. Republic — Cited as the case that clarified jurisprudence by abandoning the rigid requirements of Sevilla and reaffirming the doctrine in Castro. It established that a certification of no record, supported by the presumption of regularity of official duty, is adequate to prove the non-issuance of a marriage license.
• Sevilla v. Cardenas — Mentioned as a case that imposed an "inordinately stringent" requirement that a certification must categorically state that a document does not exist despite a diligent search. The Court explicitly stated that this rigid application has been abandoned.
• Go-Bangayan v. Bangayan, Jr. — Referenced as a key case where a marriage was declared non-existent and void ab initio for being absolutely simulated, applying the rules on inexistent contracts from the Civil Code.
• People v. Santiago — Used as an illustrative example where a marriage was deemed void for lack of essential consent because it was merely a ruse by the accused to escape criminal consequences, showing that the law looks beyond the ceremony to the parties' true intent.

• Family Code, Articles 2, 3, and 4 — These articles were the primary legal basis for the ruling, as they enumerate the essential and formal requisites of a valid marriage and explicitly state that the absence of any of these requisites renders the marriage void ab initio.
• Rules of Court, Rule 132, Section 28 (formerly Section 29) — This procedural rule on "Proof of lack of record" was central to the Court's reasoning on the sufficiency of the evidence presented to prove the non-issuance of the marriage license.
• Rules of Court, Rule 131, Section 3(m) — The Court invoked the disputable presumption that official duty has been regularly performed to conclude that the civil registrar's certification of "no record" implies that a diligent search was properly conducted.