WHEN parties enter into a marriage for the sole purpose of acquiring foreign nationality, our Supreme Court has ruled in Republic of the Philippines v. Albios, a 2013 case, that the marriage is nonetheless valid. The court held that it will not inquire into the motives of persons who contract marriage. Why should it not?
One of the essential requisites of marriage is consent and — where consent is lacking, the marriage is void; where it is defective, as when vitiated by fear, it is voidable. This is a live issue. It is no idle rumination on law and jurisprudence. The fact is that in their eagerness to find jobs abroad or to settle in other lands, Filipinos sometimes enter into sham marriages with aliens or Filipinos who have acquired foreign nationality by naturalization. Certainly, when the law requires consent, it demands of the parties that they consent to all that the law makes of marriage. In most cases, the parties who enter into this kind of a "show marriage" contemplate divorce immediately, after gaining access to foreign jurisdiction.
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