MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday unanimously dismissed a petition that seeks to legalize same-sex marriage in the Philippines on the basis of technicality.
SC spokesperson Brian Keith Hosaka said the SC junked the petition of Jesus Falcis on account of lack of standing, violation of principle of hierarchy of courts and failing to raise actual, justiciable controversy.
Falcis filed the petition four years ago asking the High Court to declare Articles 1 and 2 of the Family Code, which limits marriage between a man and a woman, as unconstitutional.
He wanted to nullify Articles 46 (4) and 55 (6) of the Family Code, which include homosexuality or lesbianism as legal grounds for annulment and legal separation.
The SC said it recognized the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex community’s history of discrimination and marginalization but it is only through actual facts and “real adversarial presentations” that the High Court can fully weigh the implications and consequences of the plea’s pronouncements.
“(The Court) clarified that it is only through the existence of actual facts and real adversarial presentations that this Court can fully weigh the implications and consequences of its pronouncements,” Hosaka said.
The same decision cited Falcis and his co-counsels, attorneys Darwin Angeles, Keisha Trina Guanko and Christopher Ryan Maranan for indirect contempt.
“Falcis and his counsels are cited for indirect contempt for forgetting bare rudiments of court procedure and decorum or worse, to purport to know them but really only to exploit them by way of propaganda,” it said./PN
