THE Supreme Court has ruled that marital infidelity is considered a form of psychological violence under Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004.
The High Court made the pronouncement as it upheld the conviction of a man who cohabited with another woman and impregnated her while his wife worked abroad.
In a decision dated March 1, 2023 but only made public on Tuesday, the SC’s First Division denied the petition for review of the man identified in court proceedings as XXX and affirmed the January 31, 2019 and October 18, 2019 rulings of the Court of Appeals.
The CA rulings affirmed the conviction of the man by the lower court finding him guilty of violation of the VAWC Act by “causing mental or emotional anguish, public ridicule or humiliation to the woman or her child, including, but not limited to, repeated verbal and emotional abuse, and denial of financial support or custody of minor children or access to the woman’s child/children.”
The SC ruling penned by Associate Justice Ramon Paul Hernando emphasized that marital infidelity is one of the forms of psychological violence.
The High Court said it agreed with the CA and the RTC decisions and ruled that all the elements to establish a violation of Sec. 5 (i) of RA 9262 were present, namely, the offended party is a woman and/or her child or children, the woman is either the wife or former wife of the offender, the offender caused on the woman and/or child mental or emotional anguish, and the anguish is caused through acts of public ridicule or humiliation, repeated verbal and emotional abuse, denial of financial support or custody of minor children or access to the children or similar to such acts or omissions.
Court records show that petitioner and complainant, identified as AAA, were married on December 29, 2006 and had a daughter, who has been codenamed BBB.
AAA went to Singapore in 2008 to work but found out in May 2015 that her husband was in a romantic relationship with another woman, identified in court as CCC.
Worst, she later discovered that the other woman was pregnant with her husband’s child.
She also learned that her husband even brought the other woman to their hometown, prompting the latter to return to the country.
She later sought the assistance of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in getting her daughter from her mother-in-law.
She filed charges against her husband in 2016 and the lower court found him guilty of inflicting psychological violence against his wife and daughter through emotional and psychological abandonment.
He appealed the ruling before the CA, arguing that the court failed to consider that it was his wife who alienated their child from him and for failing to consider that it was him who took custody of the child when she was still seven-months old until October 2015.
However, the appellate court found no merit in the petition and held that contrary to petitioner’s allegation, the information charged him not only with deprivation of financial support to the child, but also the act of abandoning his family, which may be considered as having been subsumed in the phrase “similar acts or omissions” mentioned under Sec. 5(i) of RA 9262.
The CA also explained that while the prosecution was not able to establish that he denied them financial support, the prosecution was able to clearly show that he abandoned them, and such abandonment caused them mental or emotional anguish.
He then filed a motion for reconsideration but the same was denied by the CA, forcing him to elevate the case to the SC.
The SC upheld the lower court and CA rulings, explaining that there are several forms of abuse, the most visible form of which is physical violence.
The others are sexual violence, psychological violence, and economic abuse.
The SC also said that the prosecution in this case was able to satisfactorily establish his marital infidelity, his cohabitation with CCC who even bore him a child, and his abandonment of his wife.
