BY AYIN DREAM D. APLASCA
“IT’S SAD to belong to someone else when the right one comes along.” Some of you may be familiar with this song.
It has a good melody and the lyrics go straight to the heart and terribly affect emotions or feelings.
Why is that so? Well, a lot of people may have had the best feeling when they fell in love but later on realized they were in a wrong relationship.
This situation is the same with some of my clients. I believe this kind of situation is “manageable” when two persons are just in the pre-marital stage. However, when both persons are already married, the situation is critical.
Two people fell in love. Both of them fell out of love. The husband had another woman and with whom he had a child. The wife abandoned the husband and got for herself another man. Both of them wanted to forget the past and move on with their new respective partners. Both wanted to end their marriage officially.
They proposed to have a compromise agreement for their separation. Now the question is: Is the compromise agreement valid?
Let us revisit the Civil Code (CC).
A compromise agreement is a specific type of contract. Articles 1305 and 1306, CC provide for the elements of a contract and how it is perfected.
Under the law, a contract is a meeting of the minds between two persons. The one binds himself, with respect to the other, to give something or to render some service. The parties may establish such stipulations, clauses, terms, and conditions as they may deem convenient. These should be not contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order, or public policy.
In relation thereto is Article 2035, CC which states that “no compromise upon the following questions shall be valid: (1) The civil status of persons; (2) The validity of a marriage or a legal separation; (3) Any ground for legal separation; (4) Future support; (5) The jurisdiction of courts; and (6) Future legitime.”
Legal separation is a judicial process where the marital obligations of the spouses to live together as husband and wife as well as their property relations are terminated. The grounds for legal separation are set forth in Article 55 of the Family Code.
Thus, the compromise agreement with regard to separation may not be valid because any ground for legal separation cannot be a subject for compromise agreement. (ayindream.aplasca@gmail.com/PN)
