Attykalibre.com

Marriages can be vulnerable to annulment proceeding under article 45 of Family Code of the Philippines. The following are grounds for annulment:
1. Both parties were eighteen (18) years of age but under twenty-one (21), also the marriage was celebrated lacking of the consent from parents, guardian or any person with substitute parental authority over the party. The annulment can only be filed in no more than five (5) years upon reaching the age of twenty-one. However, the parties are not permitted to file the annulment if they have voluntarily lived as husband and wife upon reaching the age of twenty-one. Parties parent/s or guardian be entitled also to file the Petition before they reach the age of twenty-one.

Read more: Grounds for Annulment

It is a judicial process under Family Code of the Philippines which purpose is to declare a marriage null and void. It assumes the marriage was null and void from the inception. In the eyes of law, the marriage is not existing. However, there are so countless queries about this matter like, Is it necessary to file the nullity of marriage if such marriage did not even exist from the start? The answer is, although the marriage was void since inception, the law still compels us to secure a declaration of absolute nullity of your marriage through filing a case in court.

Read more: Declaration of Nullity of Marraige

Murder is the unlawful killing of any person which is not parricide or infanticide, provided that any of the following circumstances is present:

1. With treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense, or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity

2. In consideration of a price, reward or promise Note: For reward and promise to be considered, the same must the primary consideration in the commission of a crime
or felony. If this aggravating circumstance is present in the commission of the crime, it affects not only the person who received the money or reward but also the person who gave it.

3. By means of inundation, fire, poison, explosion, shipwreck, stranding on a vessel, derailment or assault upon a railroad, fall of an airship, by motor vehicles, or with the use of any other means involving great waste and ruin

4. On occasion of any of the calamities enumerated in the preceding paragraph, or of an earthquake, eruption of volcano, destructive cyclone, epidemic, or other
public calamity

5. With evident premeditation
Note: The offender must have taken advantage of the same and the resultant condition.

6. With cruelty, by deliberately and inhumanly augmenting the suffering of the victim, or outraging or scoffing at his person or corpse.

Note: Cruelty includes the situation where the victim is already dead and yet, acts were committed which would decry or scoff the corpse of the victim. The crime becomes murder.

There is no cruelty if the act is the result of an impulse of passion or extreme obfuscation as such will be inconsistent with the concept of deliberateness in augmenting the suffering of the victim

Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code  affords  protection  to  a  spouse considered  to  have  acted  in  a  justified  outburst  of  passion or  a  state  of  mental  disequilibrium.  The offended  spouse  has  no  time  to  regain  his  self‐control.

However the following circusmstances must be present:

1. A legally married person or a parent surprises his spouse or daughter, the latter under 18 years of age and living with him, in the act of committing sexual intercourse.

2. He or she kills any or both of them or inflicts upon any or both of them any serious physical injury in the act or immediately thereafter.

3. He has not promoted or facilitated the prostitution of his wife or daughter, or that he or she has not consented to the infidelity of the other spouse.

Parracide is a criminal act of killing his father, mother, or child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, or any of his ascendants, or descendants, or his spouse,hall be punished by the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death.

The relationship, except the spouse, must be in the direct line and not in the collateral line. Hence, if  father the killed his son and was assisted by his nephew , then father is guilty of parricide while the nephew committed murder or homicide as case maybe.

Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act (RA 9262)

What is Republic Act No. 9262?

RA 9262 is the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004. It seeks to address the prevalence of violence against women and children (VAWC), abuses on women and their children by their partners like:

Husband or ex-husband
Live-in partner or ex-live in partner
Boyfriend/girlfriend or ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend
Dating partner or ex-dating partner
The Act classifies violence against women and children (VAWC) as a public crime.

What is VAWC under the law?

It refers to “any act or a series of acts committed by any person against a woman who is his wife, former wife, or against a woman with whom the person has or had a sexual or dating relationship, or with whom he has a common child, or against her child whether legitimate or illegitimate, within or without the family abode, which result in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological harm or suffering, or economic abuse including threats of such acts, battery, assault, coercion, harassment or arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

It includes, but is not limited to, the following acts:

Physical violence refers to acts that include bodily or physical harm;

Sexual violence refers to an act which is sexual in nature, committed against a woman or her child. It includes but is not limited to:

Rape, sexual harassment, acts of lasciviousness, treating a woman or her child as a sex object, making demeaning and sexually suggestive remarks, physically attacking the sexual parts of the victim’s body, forcing her/him to watch obscene publications and indecent shows or forcing the woman or her child to do indecent acts and/or make films thereof, forcing the wife and mistress/lover to live in the conjugal home or sleep together in the same room with the abuser;
Acts, causing or attempting to cause the victim to engage in any sexual activity by force, threat of force, physical or other harm or threat of physical or other harm or coercion;
Prostituting the woman or her child.
Psychological violence refers to acts or omissions causing or likely to cause mental or emotional suffering of the victim such as but not limited to intimidation, harassment, stalking, damage to property, public ridicule or humiliation, repeated verbal abuse and marital infidelity. It includes causing or allowing the victim to witness the physical, sexual or psychological abuse of a member of the family to which the victim belongs, or to witness pornography in any form or to witness abusive injury to pets or to unlawful or unwanted deprivation of the right to custody and/or visitation of common children.

Economic abuse refers to acts that make or attempt to make a woman financially dependent. This includes but is not limited to the following:

Withdrawal of financial support or preventing the victim from engaging in any legitimate profession, occupation, business or activity, except in cases wherein the other spouse/partner objects on valid, serious and moral grounds as defined in Article 73 of the Family Code;
Deprivation or threat of deprivation of financial resources and the right to the use and enjoyment of the conjugal, community or property owned in common;
Destroying household property;
Controlling the victim’s own money or properties or solely controlling the conjugal money or properties.
Children are those below 18 years of age or those, regardless of age, who are incapable of taking care of themselves (as stated in Republic Act 7610). It includes the biological children of the victim and other children under her care. A dating relationship is one which has a romantic involvement. It means that a relationship existed between a woman and a partner who is abusive or has previously a bused her, whether or not the relationship was formal.

Sexual relations refer to a single sexual act which mayor may not result to a bearing of a child.

Who gets protected under the law?

The law recognizes the unequal relations of a man and a woman in an abusive relationship where it is usually the woman who is disadvantaged. Thus, the law protects the woman and her children.

The victim, the child who is a minor (legitimate and illegitimate), and a person aged 18 years and beyond who doesn’t have the ability to decide for herself/himself because of an emotional, physical and mental illness can make full use of the law.
Any child under the care of a woman is also protected under the law.

Is VAWC committed by men alone?

Women can also be liable under the law. These are the lesbian partners/girlfriends or former partners of the victim with whom she has or had a sexual or dating relationship. (Source: Barangay Protection Order RA 9262: A Primer. Department of Interior and Local Government, National Barangay Operations Office, 2004.)

What if the female victim commits violence against her partner?

The law acknowledges that women who have retaliated against their partners or who commit violence as a form of self-defense may have suffered from battered women syndrome (BWS).

BWS is a “scientifically defined pattern of psychological and behavioral symptoms found in women living in battering relationships as a result of cumulative abuse.” (Source: Salient Features: A Guide to Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children [RA 9262]. Philippine Information Agency and National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, 2004. )

Any victim who suffers from BWS should be diagnosed by a psychiatric expert or a clinical psychologist. This will also help the victim in obtaining a just decision in her case.

What if the male spouse/partner complains about abuses committed by his wife/partner?

He may file a complaint or case under the Revised Penal Code.

What are the penalties for committing VAWC?

If the courts have proven that the offender is guilty of the crime, he may be imprisoned and will be obliged to pay P100,000 to P300, 000 in damages. The length of imprisonment depends on the gravity of the crime.

What can women and children do under the law?

The law allows women and their children to secure barangay protection order and/or temporary or permanent protection order from the courts.

They can also file an independent civil action for damages and criminal action for the violation of anti-VAWC Act.

What is a protection order?

It is an order prescribed in the Anti-VAWC Act to prevent further abuse of or violence against a woman and her child. It also provides them relief from said abuse or violence.

Who may file the protection order?

Anyone of the following may also file the protection order in behalf of the victim/s:

Parent or guardian
Grandparents
Children and grandchildren
Relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws)
Local officials and DSWD social workers
Police
Lawyers
Counselors
Therapists
Health care providers (nurses, doctors, barangay health workers)
Any two people who came from the city or municipality where VAWC happened and who have personal knowledge of the crime.

As maybe broadly defined, authorized causes for dismissal of employee refer to those lawful grounds for termination which in general do not arise from fault or negligence of the employee. “Authorized causes” are distinguished from “just causes” under Article 282 in that the latter are always based on acts attributable to the employee’s own fault or negligence.

Authorized causes

The authorized causes for termination of employee are enumerated under Article 283 and 284 of the Labor Code, as follows:
Installation of labor-saving devices. The installation of labor-saving devices contemplates the installation of machinery to effect economy and efficiency in the method of production.

Redundancy. Redundancy exists where the services of an employee are in excess of what is reasonably demanded by the actual requirements of the enterprise. A position is redundant where it superfluous, and superfluity of a position or positions may be the outcome of a number of factors, such as over hiring of workers, decreased of volume business, or dropping of a particular product line or service activity previously manufactured or undertaken by the enterprise.

Retrenchment to prevent losses. Retrenchment is an economic ground to reduce the number of employees. Retrenchment is the reduction of personnel for the purpose of cutting down on costs of operations in terms of salaries and wages resorted to by an employer because of losses in operation of a business occasioned by lack of work and considerable reduction in the volume of business[3]. It is sometimes also referred to as downsizing. It is aimed at saving a financially ailing business establishment from eventually collapsing.
Closure or cessation of operation. The closure of a business establishment is a ground for the termination of the services of an employee unless the closing is for the purpose of circumventing pertinent provisions of the Labor Code.

Disease. An employer may terminate the services of an employee who has been found to be suffering from any disease and whose continued employment is prohibited by law or is prejudicial to his health as well as the health of his co-employees.
It should be noted though that the above enumeration is not an exhaustive list of authorized causes of termination of employment. Valid application of union security clause, relocation of business, among others, may also considered authorized causes of termination.

Constructive dismissal is an employer’s act amounting to dismissal but made to appear as if it were not – a dismissal in disguise. In most cases of constructive dismissal, the employee is allowed to continue to work, but is simply reassigned, or demoted, or his pay diminished without a valid reason to do so.

Constructive dismissal does not always involve forthright dismissal or diminution in rank, compensation, benefit and privileges. There may be constructive dismissal if an act of clear discrimination, insensibility or disdain by an employer becomes so unbearable on the part or the employee that it could foreclose any choice by him except to forego his continued employment. (See Hyatt Taxi Services case, G.R. No. 143204, June 26, 2001.)

Constructive Dismissal and Involuntary Resignation

Constructive dismissal is an involuntary resignation resulting in cessation of work resorted to when continued employment becomes impossible, unreasonable or unlikely; when there is a demotion in rank or a diminution in pay; or when a clear discrimination, insensibility or disdain by an employer becomes unbearable to an employee.

In Globe Telecom, Inc. v. Florendo-Flores, it was held that where an employee ceases to work due to a demotion of rank or a diminution of pay, an unreasonable situation arises which creates an adverse working environment rendering it impossible for such employee to continue working for her employer. Hence, her severance from the company was not of her own making and therefore amounted to an illegal termination of employment. (Cited in Francisco vs. NLRC, G.R. No. 170087, August 21, 2006.)