MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court has clarified that brief physical separation does not automatically break a couple’s cohabitation period, but reaffirmed that a marriage remains null and void if an affidavit of cohabitation contains false claims regarding the required five-year continuous living arrangement.
In a decision penned by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting under G.R. No. 262653, the tribunal pointed out that temporary absences do not disrupt cohabitation provided the couple maintains their marital bond through shared domestic life, joint finances, or public representation as husband and wife.
However, the ruling came as the High Court denied a petition filed by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) seeking to uphold the 2009 marriage of a couple who had bypassed the standard marriage license requirement using Article 34 of the Family Code.
Article 34 allows common-law partners who have lived together uninterrupted for at least five years to marry without obtaining a marriage license. The rule was created to encourage long-term cohabitating couples to finalize their unions without experiencing public embarrassment.
According to a summary from the SC’s Office of the Spokesperson, the couple began living together in December 2003. In May 2006, the husband went overseas for work and returned in May 2009. Prior to their wedding that same month, the couple executed an Affidavit of Cohabitation stating they had lived as husband and wife for six years to secure the license exemption.
The husband went abroad again in June 2009, and after two months of communication, the couple drifted apart. In March 2013, the husband petitioned a Regional Trial Court (RTC) to invalidate the marriage, confessing that the affidavit was fraudulent because he had been working overseas from 2006 to 2009.
The RTC ruled in February 2016 that the couple failed to fulfill the five-year legal requirement, rendering the marriage null and void. The Court of Appeals later affirmed the ruling in July 2021, rejecting the OSG’s defense of the marriage.
In sustaining the lower courts’ rulings, the Supreme Court emphasized that the couple failed to present sufficient evidence of continuous legal cohabitation before their wedding.
“At most, the two dated exclusively and sojourned in several places. However, the fact that they intermittently and occasionally stayed in the same place does not amount to cohabitation as husband and wife contemplated by Article 34 of the Family Code,” the Supreme Court noted.
The tribunal stressed that executing a false statement to bypass statutory requirements invalidates any legal exemption.
“Verily, the man admitted signing the Affidavit of Cohabitation despite not meeting the statutory conditions. Such falsity renders the affidavit ineffectual; it does not confer exemption from the license requirement. The marriage, founded on this false declaration, is void,” the High Court ruled.