A quick note before anything else: I’m not a lawyer. I’m a law student, and this blog is where I write down what I’m learning. Nothing here is legal advice — for your own case, talk to an actual Philippine lawyer.
Ask a Filipino what to do about a marriage that has collapsed and you’ll hear one word: annulment. It’s the wrong word, and the confusion costs people money.
What most people mean is a petition for declaration of nullity under Article 36 of the Family Code — psychological incapacity. That treats the marriage as void from the start, as if it never legally existed. Annulment proper covers marriages that were valid when celebrated but are later set aside for things like fraud or lack of parental consent. Different grounds, different evidence.
In 2021 the Supreme Court rewrote how Article 36 cases are proven, in Tan-Andal v. Andal (G.R. No. 196359, En Banc, 11 May 2021). Five years on, it’s still the most misunderstood ruling in Philippine family law — usually in the direction of wishful thinking.
The problem it was fixing
For almost 25 years courts followed Republic v. Molina (1997), which required psychological incapacity to be medically or clinically identified, proven by an expert witness, and shown to be grave, juridically antecedent, and medically or clinically incurable.
In practice that meant one thing: hire a psychologist. The evaluation was usually built on secondhand accounts, since the other spouse rarely agreed to be examined — and it made cases slower, costlier, and out of reach for a lot of families.
There was a deeper problem too. The Family Code drafting committee’s records show psychological incapacity was never meant to be a mental incapacity or a personality disorder. Molina had bolted a clinical requirement onto a concept that was never clinical.
What Tan-Andal held
Psychological incapacity is a legal concept, not a medical one. It is neither a mental incapacity nor a personality disorder that must be proved through expert opinion. What matters are the durable, enduring aspects of a person’s personality — the “personality structure” — showing up as clear acts of dysfunctionality that undermine the family.
Expert testimony is no longer mandatory. A psychologist or psychiatrist isn’t required in every case, so long as the totality of evidence is clear and convincing. Juridical antecedence can be proven by ordinary witnesses who can describe the spouse’s past experiences or the environment they grew up in.
“Incurable” now means incurable in the legal sense. The incapacity must be so enduring and persistent as to that specific partner that the two personality structures are so incompatible and antagonistic that the only outcome is the inevitable and irreparable breakdown of the marriage.
Gravity and antecedence survive. The incapacity must still have existed at the wedding, and must still be serious. Mild character flaws and ordinary marital friction don’t qualify.
And the standard of proof went up. Tan-Andal raised it from preponderance of evidence to clear and convincing evidence — more than a preponderance, less than beyond reasonable doubt. Justice Mario V. Lopez, concurring, saw no reason to abandon the preponderance standard and warned that a higher burden would make release from a void marriage more burdensome.
So did it get easier?
No. It got cheaper to start and harder to win.
The Court removed a cost barrier and added an evidentiary one. Those aren’t the same thing. A petition that might have squeaked by on preponderance now faces a stricter test, with the Solicitor General still appearing in every case and prosecutors still screening for collusion.
The decided cases show it. In one post-Tan-Andal ruling, a described Dependent Personality Disorder failed on gravity, incurability, and antecedence — there was a psychiatric report, but nothing showing the personality structure predated the 1984 marriage. In Laguda v. Manguardia-Laguda (G.R. No. 279718, 29 January 2026), the Court upheld the marriage, finding the complained-of behaviors were ordinary marital difficulties, not grave psychological incapacity.
Notice what fails. Almost never the diagnosis. Almost always juridical antecedence — nobody put a witness on the stand who knew the spouse before the wedding and could describe what was already wrong then.
Practical takeaways
- Antecedence is the whole game. Siblings, childhood friends, the college roommate. People who saw it before the wedding march.
- Behavior, not labels. Courts want specific, dated acts, not a diagnosis.
- Keep the psychologist if you can afford one. Optional isn’t worthless. A well-founded report survived cross-examination in Tan-Andal itself.
- Irreconcilable differences aren’t a ground. Neither is infidelity or falling out of love.
- Check the other routes first. No marriage license, a defective affidavit of cohabitation, bigamy, an unauthorized solemnizing officer — often far easier to prove than what’s inside someone’s head.
And there’s still no divorce
The House passed the Absolute Divorce Act (HB 9349) on 22 May 2024, but the Senate never acted on any of the five divorce bills before the 19th Congress ended, and pending bills die with it. Measures were refiled when the 20th Congress opened in July 2025, including HB 210. Nothing has been enacted.
Until that changes, Article 36 as reshaped by Tan-Andal is the main door out — narrower than the headlines suggested, and open only to people who can prove what their spouse already was on the day they said yes.
Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash.
