SANTOS VS.

CA
FACTS:
Plaintiff Leouel Santos married defendant Julia Bedia on September 20, 1986. On May 18 1988, Julia left
for the U.S to work as a nurse. She only called up Leouel seven months after she left with promise to
return after her contract expires on July 1989. She didn’t come back. Leouel had a military training in the
US and he looked for Julia but he never found her. In 1991, Leoul filed a complaint for voiding the
marriage under Article 36 of FC.

ISSUE: Does the failure of Julia to return home, or at the very least to communicate with him, for more

than five years constitute psychological incapacity?

HELD: NO. Dismissed.

RATIO:

SC defined psychological incapacity as to no less than a mental (not physical) incapacity that causes

a party to be truly cognitive of the basic marital covenants that concomitantly must be assumed and
discharged by the parties to the marriage which, as so expressed by Article 68 of the Family Code,
include their mutual obligations to live together, observe love, respect and fidelity and render help
and support. There is hardly any doubt that the intendment of the law has been to confine the
meaning of “psychological incapacity” to the most serious cases of personality disorders clearly
demonstrative of an utter insensitivity or inability to give meaning and significance to the marriage.
This psychological condition must exist at the time the marriage is celebrated.

For psychological incapacity to be proven, there must be a real inability to commit oneself to the

essential obligations of marriage. Mere difficulty of assuming these obligations which could be

overcome by normal effort does not constitute incapacity.

Dr. Veloso of the Metropolitan Marriage Tribunal gave 3 characteristics of psychological incapacity:

1.gravity that would really render one incapable of carrying out the ordinary duties in marriage

2. juridical antecedence means it should be rooted in history, existing prior to the marriage

3. incurability including cure that is beyond the party’s means. Circumstances of the case at bar do

not amount to psychological incapacity.