People VS Borromeo

FACTS:

At high noon on July 3, 1981, the four year old niece of Susana & Elias Borromeo told Matilde Taborada
(mother of Susana) that Susana was screaming because Elias was killing her. Taborada told her to inform
her son, Geronimo Taborada. Geronimo, in turn, told his father and together, they went to Susana’s hut.
There they found Susana’s lifeless body next to her crying infant and Elias mumbling incoherently still with
the weapon in his hands. The accused-appellant, Elias, said that because they were legally and validly
married, he should only be liable for “homicide” and not “parricide”. He thinks such because there was
no marriage contract issued on their wedding day and after that. However, in his testimony, he admitted
that the victim was his wife and that they were married in a chapel by a priest.

This is an appeal from the decision of the court finding accused Elias Borromeo guilty beyond reasonable
doubt of the crime of parricide and sentencing him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua. Accused-
appellant contends that the trial court erred in holding that he and Susana Taborada (the deceased) were
legally and validly married because there was no marriage contact executed in their wedding, hence he
could be liable only for homicide, not parricide.

Other than the stand of appellants counsel against the existence of marriage in order to lessen or mitigate
the penalty imposable upon his client, accused Elias Borromeo himself admitted that the deceased-victim
was his legitimate wife.

ISSUE:

Was there a valid marriage between the accused-appellant and the deceased-victim?

RULING:

There is no better proof of marriage than the admission of the accused of the existence of such marriage.
(Tolentino vs. Paras).

Persons living together in apparent matrimony are presumed, in the absence of any counter presumption
or evidence special to the case, to be in fact married. The reason is that such is the common order of the
society, and if the parties were not what they thus hold themselves out as being, they would be living in
constant violation of decency and law.

The presumption in favor of the matrimony is one of the strongest known in law. The reason for this
presumption is well settled in Perido vs. Perido, thus:

The basis of human society throughout the civilized world is that of marriage. Marriage is not only a civil
contract, but it is a new relation, an institution in the maintenance of which the public is deeply interested.
Consequently, every intendment of the law leans toward legalizing matrimony.