BY ATTY. JULIUS GREGORY B. DELGADO
JUANITO B. SOTO VS. CASSANDRA REYES-SOTO, G.R. NO. 249759 (APRIL 22, 2026): RESTATEMENT OF TAN-ANDAL, GEORFO AND ESTELLA DOCTRINES ON NULLITY OF MARRIAGE DUE TO PSYCHOLOGICAL INCAPACITY UNDER ARTICLE 36 OF THE FAMILY CODE – PART II
Applying Tan Andal vs. Andal, G.R. No. 196359, May 11, 2021, Georfo vs. Republic of the Philippines, G.R. No. 246933, March 06, 2023, and Estella vs. Perez, G.R. No. 249250, September 29, 2021, the Supreme Court held that psychological incapacity of both parties was established with clear and convincing evidence.
The Court found merit in the expert testimony of the psychiatrist who studied the parties’ life histories, relational dynamics, and patterns of behavior relevant to their capacity to perform essential marital obligations. The interview allowed the psychiatrist to assess conscious narratives and the deeper relational patterns of the parties, from which she arrived at her findings in her psychiatric assessment.
As to the requisite or element of juridical antecedence, the Supreme Court held that the interviews conducted by the psychiatrist on both parties yielded a result which pre-existed during the parties’ formative years. With respect to the respondent, the psychiatrist explained that she grew upon with a “very strict and disciplinarian” mother, experienced emotional restraint, and developed a feeling of rejection due to the attention given to an ailing sibling and the prolonged absence of her father. These experiences, as noted by the psychiatrist, resulted in a personality structure marked by emotional passivity and unexpressed anger.
With respect to the petitioner, the psychiatrist traced his condition to his psychological development prior to marriage. The psychiatrist testified that his “very very close relationship with the mother during his growing up,” coupled with maternal over-protection, arrested his emotional development “at the infantile level.” The psychiatrist testified that this resulted in an enduring inability to separate filial attachment from marital intimacy – an incapacity that existed long before the marriage and surfaced only when marital obligations demanded emotional independence.
On the requisite or element of incurability, the Supreme Court held that it does not require proof that no form of therapy could theoretically produce change. Incurability refers to a condition that is so enduring and persistent, particularly with respect to the specific spouse, that the marriage is rendered beyond repair. The psychiatrist testified that the personality structure was “deeply engrained” and that “no amount of professional assistance or treatment can change or modify it, i.e., decades of emotional disengagement, the absence of marital intimacy since the late 1980s, and the respondent’s consistent inability to re-establish an emotional bond with the petitioner despite prolonged separation and the later attempts at reconnection.
Finally, with respect to the requisite or element of gravity, the Supreme Court held that gravity does not require medical severity. It requires a showing that the incapacity arises form a genuinely psychic cause and is not reducible to mere refusal, neglect, difficulty, or ill will. Gravity is established when the evidence reveals an utter inability or insensitivity to give meaning and substance to the marriage. The psychiatrist held that respondent’s passive-aggressive personality structure caused her to withdraw emotionally and develop “anger, hatred, lack of concern, negativism, and lack of respect” toward the petitioner. Rather than engage in a mutual effort to sustain the marital relationship, she unconsciously disengaged, redirecting her emotional investments toward her career and child, and ultimately rejecting the marital partnership itself.
As to the petitioner, the psychiatrist testified that his inadequate personality rendered him incapable of providing emotional intimacy, affection, and security. The psychiatrist further explained that petitioner does not know how to express and satisfy respondent’s needs and that his inability to delineate between his relationship with his mother and his wife gravely impaired his marital role.
The Supreme Court concluded: “The opposing personality structures left the spouses suspended in a prolonged state of emotional limbo. They remained legally bound but psychologically estranged. Each hoping, in different ways, for the marriage to work, not in substance, marked by emotional distance, absence of intimacy, and the quiet resignation of two individuals unable to move forward together or apart. In this sense, the defect of the marriage was not the result of isolated acts or conscious choice but of a fundamental psychological incongruity that rendered genuine marital life impossible from the outset.”