SALLY GO-BANGAYAN vs.
BENJAMIN BANGAYAN, JR.
G.R. No. 201061, July 3, 2013
Facts:
In
1973, respondent Benjamin Bangayan married Azucena Alegre and had three
children. Azucena left for the USA in 1981 while Benjamin developed a romantic
relationship with petitioner Sally Go-Bangayan and eventually lived together as
husband and wife in 1982.
Since
Sally’s father was against the relationship, Sally brought Benjamin to an
office in Pasig City where they signed a purported marriage contract in order
to appease her father. Sally, knowing Benjamin’s marital status, assured him
that the marriage contract would not be registered.
During
their cohabitation, they produced two children and acquired several properties.
Their relationship ended in 1994 when Sally and the children left for Canada.
She then filed criminal actions for bigamy and falsification of public
documents against Benjamin, using their simulated marriage contract as
evidence. Benjamin, in turn, filed a petition for declaration of a non-existent
marriage and/or declaration of nullity of marriage on the ground that his
marriage to Sally was bigamous and that it lacked the formal requisites to a
valid marriage. Benjamin also asked the trial court for the partition of the
properties he acquired with Sally. A total of 44 registered properties became
the subject of the partition before the trial court.
Issue: Whether the marriage is null and void ab initio and
non-existent.
Ruling:
Yes.
Benjamin’s marriage to Azucena in 1973 was duly established before the trial
court, evidenced by a certified true copy of their marriage contract. At the
time Benjamin and Sally entered into a purported marriage in 1982, the marriage
between Benjamin and Azucena was valid and subsisting.
The
registration officer of the Local Civil Registrar of Pasig City testified that
there was no valid marriage license issued to Benjamin and Sally. She confirmed
that the local civil registrar of Pasig City did not issue Marriage License No.
N-07568 to Benjamin and Sally. The certification from the local civil registrar
is adequate to prove the non-issuance of a marriage license and absent any
suspicious circumstance, the certification enjoys probative value, being issued
by the officer charged under the law to keep a record of all data relative to
the issuance of a marriage license. Clearly, if indeed Benjamin and Sally
entered into a marriage contract, the marriage was void from the beginning for
lack of a marriage license.
It
was also established before the trial court that the purported marriage between
Benjamin and Sally was not recorded with the local civil registrar and the
National Statistics Office. The lack of record was certified by the Local Civil
Registrar, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the National Statistics
Office. The documentary and testimonial evidence proved that there was no
marriage between Benjamin and Sally. As pointed out by the trial court, the
marriage between Benjamin and Sally "was made only in jest" and
"a simulated marriage, at the instance of Sally, intended to cover her up
from expected social humiliation coming from relatives, friends and the society
especially from her parents seen as Chinese conservatives." In short,
it was a fictitious marriage.
The
fact that Benjamin was the informant in the birth certificates of Bernice and
Bentley was not a proof of the marriage between Benjamin and Sally.
On
whether or not the parties’ marriage is bigamous under the concept of Article
349 of the Revised Penal Code, the marriage is not bigamous. It is required
that the first or former marriage shall not be null and void. The marriage of
the petitioner to Azucena shall be assumed as the one that is valid, there
being no evidence to the contrary and there is no trace of invalidity or
irregularity on the face of their marriage contract. However, if the second
marriage was void not because of the existence of the first marriage but for
other causes such as lack of license, the crime of bigamy was not committed.
Concluding, the marriage of the parties is therefore not bigamous because there
was no marriage license.
For
bigamy to exist, the second or subsequent marriage must have all the essential
requisites for validity except for the existence of a prior marriage. In
this case, there was really no subsequent marriage. Benjamin and Sally just
signed a purported marriage contract without a marriage license. The supposed
marriage was not recorded with the local civil registrar and the National
Statistics Office. In short, the marriage between Benjamin and Sally did not
exist. They lived together and represented themselves as husband and wife
without the benefit of marriage.
Since
Benjamin and Sally cohabitated without the benefit of marriage, the property
relations of Benjamin and Sally is governed by Article 148 of the Family Code
which states:
Art.
148. In cases of cohabitation not falling under the preceding Article, only the
properties acquired by both of the parties through their actual joint
contribution of money, property, or industry shall be owned by them in common
in proportion to their respective contributions. In the absence of proof to the
contrary, their contributions and corresponding shares are presumed to be
equal. The same rule and presumption shall apply to joint deposits of money and
evidences of credit.
If
one of the parties is validly married to another, his or her share in the
co-ownership shall accrue to the absolute community of conjugal partnership
existing in such valid marriage. If the party who acted in bad faith is not
validly married to another, his or her share shall be forfeited in the manner
provided in the last paragraph of the preceding Article.
The
foregoing rules on forfeiture shall likewise apply even if both parties are in
bad faith.
Thus,
only the properties acquired by them through their actual joint contribution of
money, property, or industry shall be owned by them in common in proportion to
their respective contributions. Hence, the 37 properties being claimed by Sally
which were given by Benjamin’s father to his children as advance inheritance was
correctly excluded.
G.R. No. 202666
September 29, 2014
Facts:
Julia
and Julienne were graduating high school students at St. Theresa's College
(STC), Cebu City. Sometime in January 2012, they took digital pictures of
themselves clad only in their undergarments. These pictures were then uploaded
by Angela on her Facebook profile.
Escudero,
a computer teacher at STC, learned from her students that some seniors at STC
posted pictures online, dressed only in brassieres. Her students logged in to
their respective personal Facebook accounts and showed her photos of the
identified students, which include: (a) Julia and Julienne drinking hard liquor
and smoking cigarettes inside a bar; and (b) Julia and Julienne along the
streets of Cebu wearing articles of clothing that show virtually the entirety
of their black brassieres.
Escudero
reported the matter and, through one of her student’s Facebook page, showed the
photos Tigol, STC’s Discipline-in-Charge, for appropriate action. Thereafter,
following an investigation, STC found the identified students to have deported
themselves in a manner proscribed by the school’s Student Handbook, to wit:
1. Possession of alcoholic drinks
outside the school campus;
2. Engaging in immoral, indecent,
obscene or lewd acts;
3. Smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages
in public places;
4. Apparel that exposes the
underwear;
5. Clothing that advocates unhealthy
behaviour; depicts obscenity; contains sexually suggestive messages, language
or symbols; and
6. Posing and uploading pictures on
the Internet that entail ample body exposure.
After
a meeting on March 1, 2012 with the STC officials, Julia, Julienne, Angela, and
the other students in the pictures in question, as part of their penalty, were
barred from joining the commencement exercises scheduled on March 30, 2012.
A
week before graduation, or on March 23, 2012, Angela’s mother filed a Petition
for Injunction and Damages before the RTC of Cebu City against STC, et al. praying
that defendants therein be enjoined from implementing the sanction that
precluded Angela from joining the commencement exercises.
The
RTC issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) allowing the students to attend
the graduation ceremony, to which STC filed a motion for reconsideration. Despite
the issuance of the TRO,STC nevertheless barred the sanctioned students from
participating in the graduation rites, arguing that, on the date of the
commencement exercises, its adverted motion for reconsideration on the issuance
of the TRO remained unresolved.
Thereafter,
petitioners filed before the RTC a Petition for the Issuance of a Writ of
Habeas Data.
The
RTC rendered a Decision dismissing the petition for habeas data. To the trial
court, petitioners failed to prove the existence of an actual or threatened
violation of the minors’ right to privacy, one of the preconditions for the
issuance of the writ of habeas data. Moreover, the court a quo held that the
photos, having been uploaded on Facebook without restrictions as to who may
view them, lost their privacy in some way. Besides, the RTC noted, STC gathered
the photographs through legal means and for a legal purpose, that is, the
implementation of the school’s policies and rules on discipline.
Issue:
Whether
or not there was indeed an actual or threatened violation of the right to
privacy in the life, liberty, or security of the minors involved in this case.
Ruling:
No.
The writ of habeas data is a remedy available to any person whose right to
privacy in life, liberty or security is violated or threatened by an unlawful
act or omission of a public official or employee, or of a private individual or
entity engaged in the gathering, collecting or storing of data or information
regarding the person, family, home and correspondence of the aggrieved
party. It is an independent and summary remedy designed to protect the
image, privacy, honor, information, and freedom of information of an
individual, and to provide a forum to enforce one’s right to the truth and to
informational privacy. It seeks to protect a person’s right to control
information regarding oneself, particularly in instances in which such
information is being collected through unlawful means in order to achieve
unlawful ends.
The
writ, however, will not issue on the basis merely of an alleged unauthorized
access to information about a person. Availment of the writ requires the
existence of a nexus between the right to privacy on the one hand, and the
right to life, liberty or security on the other. Thus, the existence of a
person’s right to informational privacy and a showing, at least by substantial
evidence, of an actual or threatened violation of the right to privacy in life,
liberty or security of the victim are indispensable before the privilege of the
writ may be extended.
The
purpose of an Online Social Network, like Facebook, is to give users the
ability to interact and to stay connected to other members of the same or
different social media platform through the sharing of statuses, photos,
videos, among others, depending on the services provided by the site. A
user/owner can post anything on her account ––from text, to pictures, to music
and videos––access to which would depend on whether he or she allows one, some
or all of the other users to see his or her posts.
To
address concerns about privacy, but without defeating its purpose,
Facebook was armed with different privacy tools designed to regulate the
accessibility of a user’s profile as well as information uploaded by the
user. A Facebook user can regulate the visibility and accessibility of digital
images (photos), posted on his or her personal bulletin or "wall,"
except for the user’s profile picture and ID, by selecting his or her desired
privacy setting:
(a) Public - the default setting;
every Facebook user can view the photo;
(b) Friends of Friends - only the
user’s Facebook friends and their friends can view the photo;
(b) Friends - only the user’s
Facebook friends can view the photo;
(c) Custom - the photo is made
visible only to particular friends and/or networks of the Facebook user; and
(d) Only Me - the digital image can
be viewed only by the user.
The
foregoing are privacy tools designed to give its users an avenue to make the
availability of their Facebook activities reflect their choice as to "when
and to what extent to disclose facts about themselves – and to put others in
the position of receiving such confidences. Ideally, the selected setting
will be based on one’s desire to interact with others, coupled with the
opposing need to withhold certain information as well as to regulate the
spreading of his or her personal information.
It
is through the availability of said privacy tools that many OSN users are said
to have a subjective expectation that only those to whom they grant access to
their profile will view the information they post or upload thereto. Before one
can have an expectation of privacy in his or her OSN activity, it is first
necessary that said user, in this case the children of petitioners, manifest
the intention to keep certain posts private, through the employment of measures
to prevent access thereto or to limit its visibility. And this intention
can materialize in cyberspace through the utilization of the OSN’s privacy
tools. In other words, utilization of these privacy tools is the manifestation,
in cyber world, of the user’s invocation of his or her right to informational
privacy.
Therefore,
a Facebook user who opts to make use of a privacy tool to grant or deny access
to his or her post or profile detail should not be denied the informational
privacy right which necessarily accompanies said choice.
Did
the minors limit the disclosure of the photos such that the images were kept within
their zones of privacy? Petitioners, in support of their thesis about their
children’s privacy right being violated, insist that Escudero intruded upon
their children’s Facebook accounts, downloaded copies of the pictures and
showed said photos to Tigol. To them, this was a breach of the minors’ privacy
since their Facebook accounts, allegedly, were under "very private"
or "Only Friends" setting safeguarded with a
password. Ultimately, they posit that their children’s disclosure was only
limited since their profiles were not open to public viewing. Therefore,
according to them, people who are not their Facebook friends, including
respondents, are barred from accessing said post without their knowledge and
consent. As petitioner’s children testified, it was Angela who uploaded the
subject photos which were only viewable by the five of them, although who
these five are do not appear on the records.
STC
did not violate petitioners’ daughters’ right to privacy.
The
minors’ testimonies are not given much weight for one key reason: failure to
question the students’ act of showing the photos to the school’s discipline-in-charge
disproves their allegation that the photos were viewable only by the five of
them. Without any evidence to corroborate their statement that the images were
visible only to the five of them, and without their challenging Escudero’s
claim that the other students were able to view the photos, their statements
are, at best, self-serving, thus deserving scant consideration.
It
is well to note that not one of petitioners disputed Escudero’s sworn account
that her students, who are the minors’ Facebook "friends," showed her
the photos using their own Facebook accounts. This only goes to show that no
special means to be able to view the allegedly private posts were ever resorted
to by Escudero’s students, and that it is reasonable to assume, therefore,
that the photos were, in reality, viewable either by (1) their Facebook
friends, or (2) by the public at large.
Considering
that the default setting for Facebook posts is "Public," it can be
surmised that the photographs in question were viewable to everyone on
Facebook, absent any proof that petitioners’ children positively limited the
disclosure of the photograph. If such were the case, they cannot invoke the
protection attached to the right to informational privacy. The ensuing
pronouncement in US v. Gines-Perez is most instructive:
[A]
person who places a photograph on the Internet precisely intends to forsake and
renounce all privacy rights to such imagery, particularly under circumstances
such as here, where the Defendant did not employ protective measures or devices
that would have controlled access to the Web page or the photograph itself.45
That
the photos are viewable by "friends only" does not necessarily
bolster the petitioners’ contention. In this regard, the cyber community is
agreed that the digital images under this setting still remain to be outside
the confines of the zones of privacy in view of the following:
(1) Facebook "allows the world
to be more open and connected by giving its users the tools to interact and
share in any conceivable way;"
(2) A good number of Facebook users
"befriend" other users who are total strangers;
(3) The sheer number of
"Friends" one user has, usually by the hundreds; and
(4) A user’s Facebook friend can
"share" the former’s post, or "tag" others who
are not Facebook friends with the former, despite its being visible only to his
or her own Facebook friends.
It
is well to emphasize at this point that setting a post’s or profile detail’s
privacy to "Friends" is no assurance that it can no longer be viewed
by another user who is not Facebook friends with the source of the content. The
user’s own Facebook friend can share said content or tag his or her own
Facebook friend thereto, regardless of whether the user tagged by the latter is
Facebook friends or not with the former. Also, when the post is shared or when
a person is tagged, the respective Facebook friends of the person who shared
the post or who was tagged can view the post, the privacy setting of which was
set at "Friends."
Even
assuming that the photos in issue are visible only to the sanctioned students’
Facebook friends, respondent STC can hardly be taken to task for the perceived
privacy invasion since it was the minors’ Facebook friends who showed the
pictures to Tigol. Respondents were mere recipients of what were posted. They
did not resort to any unlawful means of gathering the information as it was
voluntarily given to them by persons who had legitimate access to the said
posts. Clearly, the fault, if any, lies with the friends of the minors.
Curiously enough, however, neither the minors nor their parents imputed any
violation of privacy against the students who showed the images to Escudero.
Furthermore,
petitioners failed to prove their contention that respondents reproduced and
broadcasted the photographs. In fact, what petitioners attributed to respondents
as an act of offensive disclosure was no more than the actuality that
respondents appended said photographs in their memorandum submitted to the trial
court in connection with the case. These are not tantamount to a violation
of the minor’s informational privacy rights, contrary to petitioners’
assertion.
In sum, there can be no quibbling
that the images in question, or to be more precise, the photos of minor
students scantily clad, are personal in nature, likely to affect, if
indiscriminately circulated, the reputation of the minors enrolled in a
conservative institution. However, the records are bereft of any evidence,
other than bare assertions that they utilized Facebook’s privacy settings to
make the photos visible only to them or to a select few. Without proof that
they placed the photographs subject of this case within the ambit of their
protected zone of privacy, they cannot now insist that they have an expectation
of privacy with respect to the photographs in question.
Had
it been proved that the access to the pictures posted were limited to the
original uploader, through the "Me Only" privacy setting, or that the
user’s contact list has been screened to limit access to a select few, through
the "Custom" setting, the result may have been different, for in such
instances, the intention to limit access to the particular post, instead of
being broadcasted to the public at large or all the user’s friends en masse,
becomes more manifest and palpable.
Thus, the Court found that the
respondent STC and its officials did not violate the minors' privacy rights. The
petition is hereby DENIED.
