MANNER OF QUESTIONING VALIDITY OF MARRIAGES
Validity of marriages as well as legitimacy and filiation can be questioned only in a direct action seasonably filed by the proper party, and not through collateral attack.
Petitioners maintain that the court a quo may pass upon the validity of marriage and questions on legitimacy even in an action to correct entries in the civil registrar.
The Supreme Court ruled in the case of BRAZA vs. THE CITY CIVIL REGISTRAR OF HIMAMAYLAN CITY, NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, G.R. No. 181174, December 4, 2009, that in a special proceeding for correction of entry under Rule 108 (Cancellation or Correction of Entries in the Original Registry), the trial court has no jurisdiction to nullify marriages and rule on legitimacy and filiation.
Rule 108 of the Rules of Court vis a vis Article 412 of the Civil Code charts the procedure by which an entry in the civil registry may be cancelled or corrected. The proceeding contemplated therein may generally be used only to correct clerical, spelling, typographical and other innocuous errors in the civil registry.
A clerical error is one which is visible to the eyes or obvious to the understanding; an error made by a clerk or a transcriber; a mistake in copying or writing, or a harmless change such as a correction of name that is clearly misspelled or of a misstatement of the occupation of the parent. Substantial or contentious alterations may be allowed only in adversarial proceedings, in which all interested parties are impleaded and due process is properly observed.
The allegations of the petition filed before the trial court clearly show that petitioners seek to nullify the marriage between Pablo and Lucille on the ground that it is bigamous and impugn Patrick’s filiation in connection with which they ask the court to order Patrick to be subjected to a DNA test.