Plea to allow same-sex marriage in PH dismissed

MANILA -- The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday junked the petition filed by a lawyer challenging provisions of the country’s Family Code (Executive Order No. 209) limiting marriage to unions between men and women.

Court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka, in a press briefing Tuesday, said the court en banc ruling unanimously dismissed the petition filed by lawyer Jesus Nicardo M. Falcis III, citing lack of legal standing to initiate the petition as well as for failing to comply with the principle of hierarchy of courts.

The Court likewise also added it is turning down

the suit since there is no actual case ripe for adjudication or “failing to raise an actual, justiciable controversy,”

The Family Code provisions questioned before the high court by Falcis were parts of:

a.) Art. 1 defining marriage as “a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman,”;

b.) Art. 2 which enumerates the essential requisites of a valid marriage to include the “legal capacity of the contracting parties who must be a male and a female”

c.) Art. 46. identifying the concealment of homosexuality or lesbianism, among other things existing at the time of the marriage as fraud which may be used as basis for the annulment of a marriage; and;

d.) Art. 55. identifying lesbianism or homosexuality as grounds for a petition for legal separation.

The court said that while the Constitution does not restrict marriage on the basis of gender, it underscored the need of formal legislation to allow a more orderly deliberation in assuring rights.

“Adjudication assures arguments between parties with respect to the existence and interpretation of fundamental freedoms. On the other hand, legislation ideally allows democratic deliberation on the various ways to assure those fundamental rights,”.

“The process of legislation exposes the experiences of those who have been oppressed, ensuring that this be understood by those who stand with the majority. Often public reason needs to be first shaped through the crucible of campaigns and advocacies within our political forums before it is sharpened for judicial fiat,” the tribunal said.