G.R. No. 180863 ; September 8, 2009
ANGELITA VALDEZ, Petitioner, vs. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondent.

FACTS

Petitioner Angelita Valdez married Sofio Polborosa in 1971. After constant arguments, Sofio left in March 1972. He briefly returned in October 1975, where they executed a separation agreement, after which petitioner never saw or heard from him again. Believing him dead, petitioner contracted a second marriage with Virgilio Reyes in 1985. Decades later, this second marriage faced an impediment when a U.S. immigration application was denied because petitioner’s first marriage was deemed subsisting. Consequently, in 2007, petitioner filed a petition before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) for the judicial declaration of Sofio’s presumptive death.
The RTC dismissed the petition. It applied Article 41 of the Family Code, requiring the present spouse to have a “well-founded belief” in the absent spouse’s death, and found that petitioner failed to prove this belief as she made no proper efforts to locate Sofio after their 1975 agreement. Petitioner moved for reconsideration, arguing that the Civil Code, not the Family Code, governed her case since her first marriage was celebrated in 1971, and applying the stricter Family Code provision would impair a vested right.

ISSUE

Whether the RTC correctly dismissed the petition for declaration of presumptive death.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the RTC’s dismissal but on different grounds. The Court clarified that the applicable law is the Civil Code, as petitioner’s first marriage was celebrated before the Family Code’s effectivity. Under Article 83 of the Civil Code, a subsequent marriage is void only if the prior marriage was still validly existing at the time of the second marriage. Crucially, Article 390 of the Civil Code establishes that an absentee is presumed dead after an absence of seven years, which presumption arises by operation of law without need for a judicial declaration.
The Court held that Sofio had been absent for more than seven years by 1985 (from 1975). Therefore, the presumption of death arose automatically by law at that time, capacitating petitioner to remarry. A judicial declaration under the Civil Code was unnecessary to effectuate this presumption for the purpose of remarriage; it serves only to allow the distribution of the absentee’s estate. Since petitioner was already legally capacitated to marry Virgilio in 1985 under the Civil Code, her second marriage is valid. The petition for judicial declaration was correctly dismissed as superfluous, but the validity of the second marriage is affirmed. The Family Code’s requirement of a “well-founded belief” does not apply retroactively to impair this vested right.