Case Digest (G.R. No. 217910)
Facts:
Jesus Nicardo M. Falcis, III v. Civil Registrar General, G.R. No. 217910, September 03, 2019, the Supreme Court En Banc, Leonen, J., writing for the Court. Petitioner Jesus Nicardo M. Falcis III filed a pro se Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition under Rule 65 on May 18, 2015, seeking a declaration that Articles 1 and 2 of the Family Code are unconstitutional and the nullification (as consequential) of Articles 46(4) and 55(6) of the Family Code. He attacked the statutory definition of marriage as between a man and a woman and framed his challenge as implicating fundamental rights (liberty, equal protection, right to found a family) and urged direct resort to the Court under its expanded power of judicial review (Art. VIII, Sec. 1, 1987 Constitution / Rule 65). The petition alleged personal stake because Falcis identified as an openly homosexual person; he did not, however, allege he had applied for a marriage license or point to any concrete act by the Civil Registrar General (CRG).The Court treated several filings as interventions or motions to intervene. Fernando Perito filed an Answer-in-Intervention and raised procedural defects and lack of injury; the Office of the Solicitor General (on behalf of the Civil Registrar General) filed Comments (ad cautelam) arguing lack of justiciability, improper respondent, and that the issue is a political/policy matter for Congress. On April 7, 2016, LGBTS Christian Church, Inc., Reverend Crescencio "Ceejay" Agbayani, Jr., Marlon Felipe, and Maria Arlyn "Sugar" Ibanez filed a Petition‑in‑Intervention (with counsel initially Falcis) claiming they were denied marriage licenses and asserting religious‑freedom and third‑party standing theories. A set of intervenors‑oppositors also sought to intervene defending the Family Code on religious and public‑policy grounds.
This Court assumed original jurisdiction (petitioner invoked Rule 65), required comments, set a preliminary conference and later oral arguments (June 19 and 26, 2018), and ordered memoranda. During the June 5, 2018 preliminary conference Falcis appeared poorly prepared and inappropriately attired; the Court directed him to show cause and in a July 3, 2018 Resolution found him guilty of direct contempt and admonished him. The Court denied petitioners’ motion for extension of time and dispensed with their late memorandum; petitioners and some counsel were ordered to show cause for indirect contempt for noncompliance. Aft...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Whether the mere passage of the Family Code (Articles 1 and 2; Arts. 46(4), 55(6)) creates an actual case or controversy justiciable before the Supreme Court.
- Whether petitioner Falcis has standing (locus standi) to challenge those provisions.
- Whether the Petition‑in‑Intervention cured the procedural defects of the original Petition.
- Whether the doctrine of transcendental importance justifies relaxation of the justiciability or hierarchy‑of‑courts rules here.
- Whether the asserted right to marry and to choose whom to marry is a cognate of the rights to life and liberty such that same‑sex couples are entitled to civil marriage under the Constitution.
- Whether limiting civil marriage to opposite‑sex couples is a valid exercise of the State’s police power.
- Whether the statutory limitation of marriage to opposite‑sex couples violates the Equal Protection Clause.
- Whether denying same‑sex couples the right to marry amounts to a deprivation of life and/or liberty without due process.
- Whether sex‑based conceptions of marriage (excluding same‑sex unions) violate religious‑freedom guarantees.
- Whether a ruling that Articles 1 and 2 are unconstitutional necessarily invalidates Articles 46(4) and 55(6) (on homosexuality/lesbianism as grounds).
- Whether the par...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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