The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that hiding one’s homosexuality from a spouse can be considered fraud and may be used as a ground to annul a marriage.
In a decision written by Associate Justice Antonio Kho Jr. and made public July 15, the SC’s Second Division annulled the marriage of a woman whose husband concealed his homosexuality before they got married.
The couple met on social media and officially became a couple a year later. On their first date, the woman noticed that the man seemed distant—he didn’t kiss her or even hold her hand. He also avoided sitting beside her during meals or while commuting. When she asked him about it, he said he was just shy and lacked confidence.
They kept a long-distance relationship as the man worked in Saudi Arabia. After their wedding, they lived together briefly, but he continued to avoid intimacy and often started arguments to avoid being close to her.
Just two months after the wedding, the man returned overseas and stopped communicating, only sending a message on their first wedding anniversary.
Later, the woman found magazines with half-naked and naked male models among her husband’s things. When she confronted him, he admitted that he was homosexual. Devastated, she left their home and returned to her parents.
The woman filed for annulment, claiming her consent to the marriage was based on fraud and she wouldn’t have married him if she knew the truth. Her case relied solely on her testimony and that of her father. Her husband neither appeared in court nor submitted any response.
The Regional Trial Court and Court of Appeals denied her petition, citing a lack of sufficient evidence showing the man’s homosexuality or that he deliberately concealed his sexuality to persuade her to marry him. They found the testimonies to be self-serving and unverified by other evidence.
But the SC disagreed with the lower courts, adding that for a marriage to be valid, both parties must give their consent freely.
Article 45 of the Family Code states that a marriage can be annulled if one party’s consent was obtained through fraud, as long as the couple did not continue living together after discovering the fraud.
Article 46 further specifies that hiding one’s homosexuality or lesbianism from a spouse is considered fraud.
The SC believed the woman’s allegations, noting that the man’s admission and his unexplained silence when his sexuality was being questioned could not be ignored, the SC Office of the Spokesperson said in a press release.
Given the lies, deception, and their failure to live as husband and wife, the SC found that the husband intentionally hid his homosexuality to persuade the woman to stay and marry him. His lack of intimacy and emotional distance were attempts to hide the truth, it added.
The SC ruled that the woman’s consent to the marriage was obtained through fraud. And since she left her husband after discovering his deceit, the SC granted the annulment. ||
