12/07/2026
SUPREME COURT: CONTINUOUS COHABITATION REQUIRED FOR COMMON LAW PARTNERS TO QUALIFY FOR MARRIAGE LICENSE EXEMPTION
The Supreme Court (SC) has declared a marriage void from the beginning for lack of a valid marriage license, ruling that an Affidavit of Cohabitation containing false or fabricated statements has no legal force or effect and is considered a mere scrap of paper without legal effect.
In a 15-page decision penned by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting, the SC's Third Division has declared void ab initio the marriage between Boots Rodel Aguirre and Alma Aguirre due to absence of marriage license by executing a fraudulent Affidavit of Cohabitation
Boots and Alma were married on May 8, 2009, without securing a marriage license. Instead, they bypassed the license requirement by executing an Affidavit of Cohabitation under Article 34 of the Family Code, falsely swearing that they had continuously lived together as husband and wife for at least five years since December 2003.
However, Boots actually lived and worked in Israel from May 2006 to May 2009, returning only days before the wedding. In 2013, Boots filed a petition to declare their marriage void ab initio (from the beginning), admitting that the affidavit was fabricated to bypass the law.
The Regional Trial Court (RTC) and the Court of Appeals (CA) both declared the marriage null and void. The Republic, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that Boots’ stay in Israel was merely a "temporary absence" that did not disrupt their cohabitation.
The high court affirmed the ruling of the CA and RTC as it held that the exceptions to the marriage license requirement must be strictly construed. It noted if the essential statements in an Affidavit of Cohabitation are false, the affidavit is considered a mere scrap of paper without legal effect.
The Court explained that lawmakers exempted qualified common-law couples from the marriage license requirement to protect them from the humiliation, shame, and embarrassment that could arise from the public posting of marriage license applicants' names, as stipulated under Article 34 of the Family Code.
But it underscored that the exemption applies only to couples who have lived together continuously as husband and wife for the period required by law. It clarified that intermittent cohabitation where the parties frequently separated, maintained separate residences, and did not publicly present themselves as husband and wife, does not qualify as a common-law union for purposes of the exemption.
The SC emphasized that while brief separations due to work or business do not necessarily interrupt an already established common-law relationship, the evidence showed that Boots and Alma never established an exclusive and regular common-law household before Boots left. As such, they failed to satisfy the legal requirements for exemption from obtaining a marriage license.
It added that because the essential matter in their sworn affidavit was a lie, the document was reduced to a "mere scrap of paper" with no legal force. Without a valid license or a truthful affidavit to exempt them, the marriage was legally non-existent from the start.
