GR 193719; (March, 2017) (Digest)
G.R. No. 193719 March 21, 2017
SAMSON R. PACASUM, SR., Petitioner vs. Atty. MARIETTA D. ZAMORANOS, Respondent
FACTS
Petitioner Samson Pacasum filed an administrative complaint for disgraceful and immoral conduct against respondent Atty. Marietta Zamoranos, his wife, on the ground of bigamy. Pacasum discovered that Zamoranos had a prior marriage to Jesus De Guzman in 1982. In her defense, Zamoranos presented a Decree of Divorce issued in 1992 by the Shari’a Circuit Court of Isabela, Basilan, dissolving her first marriage under the Code of Muslim Personal Laws. She claimed she had converted to Islam prior to her first marriage. The Civil Service Commission dismissed the complaint, finding that Pacasum failed to challenge the validity of the divorce decree.
The Court of Appeals initially reversed the CSC, relying on Zamoranos’s judicial admissions in other cases that she was a Roman Catholic. However, upon reconsideration, the CA corrected itself, noting those admissions pertained to a period during and after her marriage to Pacasum and did not disprove her Muslim status at the time of her first marriage. The CA affirmed the CSC’s dismissal, ruling that the divorce decree, issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, could not be collaterally attacked in an administrative proceeding.
ISSUE
Whether the Shari’a Court’s Decree of Divorce dissolving Zamoranos’s first marriage is valid and binding, thereby negating the charge of bigamy in the administrative complaint.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the CA’s amended decision. The legal logic rests on the finality of judgments in rem and the prohibition against collateral attack. The Muslim Code expressly recognizes divorce for marriages solemnized under its provisions. Jurisdiction over such actions is vested in Shari’a Circuit Courts. A divorce decree is a judgment in rem, conclusively settling the personal status of the parties and binding upon the whole world once it becomes final.
A judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction cannot be impeached collaterally in a separate proceeding seeking different relief. A collateral attack is permitted only when the judgment is void on its face for lack of jurisdiction. Here, Pacasum’s administrative complaint before the CSC constituted an impermissible collateral attack on the Shari’a Court’s divorce decree. He did not directly appeal or seek the annulment of that decree in the proper judicial forum. Consequently, the valid divorce legally dissolved Zamoranos’s first marriage, and her subsequent marriage to Pacasum was not bigamous. The administrative charge for immoral conduct therefore had no basis.