Case Digest (G.R. No. 159218)
Facts:
Salvador S. Abunado and Zenaida Binas Abunado v. People of the Philippines, G.R. No. 159218, March 30, 2004, Supreme Court First Division, Ynares‑Santiago, J., writing for the Court.Petitioners Salvador S. Abunado and Zenaida Binas (hereafter collectively "petitioners") challenged the Court of Appeals decision in CA‑G.R. No. 26135 which affirmed with modification the conviction of Salvador for bigamy in Criminal Case No. 2803 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 77, San Mateo, Rizal. The trial court (decision penned by Judge Francisco C. Rodriguez) had convicted Salvador Abunado on May 18, 2001 and sentenced him to six years and one day to eight years and one day; Zenaida was acquitted for insufficiency of evidence. The Court of Appeals (opinion by Justice Josefina Guevara‑Salonga) modified the penalty under the Indeterminate Sentence Law and reduced the minimum to an indeterminate term of two years, four months and one day of prision correccional as minimum to six years and one day of prision mayor as maximum.
The factual background is that Salvador first married Narcisa Arceno on September 18, 1967. Narcisa left to work abroad in 1988 and returned in 1992, when she discovered that Salvador had left the conjugal home and was cohabiting with Fe Corazon Plato. Narcisa later learned that Salvador had contracted a second marriage with Zenaida Binas on January 10, 1989 before Judge Lilian Dinulos Panontongan in San Mateo, Rizal. Salvador asserted that he had previously married Zenaida on December 24, 1955 in Concepcion, Iloilo and that they had four children, but the 1955 marriage lacked evidentiary proof and, at his son's request for military commissioning purposes, he and Zenaida remarried on January 10, 1989.
Procedurally, Salvador filed a petition for annulment of his marriage to Narcisa on January 19, 1995, and Narcisa filed the bigamy complaint on May 18, 1995. Salvador was ultimately convicted by the RTC; the Court of Appeals affirmed with modification of the penalty; Salvador and Zenaida then filed a petition for review on certiorari to the Supreme Court under Rule 45 seeking reversal of the CA decision. Before the Supreme Court, Salvador raised, among others, claims that the Informat...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Was the Information defective for alleging the crime occurred "in or about January, 1995" when the alleged subsequent marriage was on January 10, 1989?
- Did Narcisa's alleged consent or condonation of Salvador's second marriage bar criminal liability for bigamy?
- Did the pendency of Salvador's annulment action constitute a prejudicial question that should have suspended the bigamy prosecution?
- Was the penalty imposed by the courts improper under the Indeterminate Sentence...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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