Short answer. Five years after the marriage — not five years from when you found out. This is one of the two grounds the Family Code counts from the wedding date itself, so the period can run out before you ever learn your spouse was ill.
What the law says
(5) For causes mentioned in number 5 and 6 of Article 45, by the injured party, within five years after the marriage.
Family Code, Article 47 — Who May File; Prescriptive Periods. Read the full provision →
What the law says
(3) For causes mentioned in number 3 of Articles 45, by the injured party, within five years after the discovery of the fraud;
Family Code, Article 47 — Who May File; Prescriptive Periods. Read the full provision →
A fixed date, not a moving one
The clause is short and unforgiving: within five years after the marriage. There is no discovery rule and no allowance for a disease that stayed hidden. The wedding date on the marriage certificate is the whole of the calculation, and on the fifth anniversary this route closes whether or not you knew anything was wrong. That is a harsher rule than most people expect, and it is the reason the first thing worth checking is not the medical evidence but the date.
Concealment is counted differently
Look at the neighbouring clause. Where the complaint is fraud, the action may be brought within five years after the discovery of the fraud — and concealment of a sexually transmissible disease existing at the time of the marriage is one of the circumstances the Family Code treats as fraud. So the same facts can support two different routes running on two different clocks. If more than five years have passed since the wedding but you learned of the concealment recently, that is the possibility to raise with a lawyer rather than assuming nothing is left.
The disease itself has to qualify
Neither route turns a diagnosis by itself into a ground. Under the annulment ground the illness must have existed at the time of the marriage and meet the statutory description of its seriousness; under the fraud route what matters is that it existed then and was kept from you. An infection contracted during the marriage is outside both. Only the injured party may file in either case, and here too freely living together as husband and wife after learning the full facts is treated as accepting the marriage.
Work out the two dates first
Before anything else, put the wedding date and the date of diagnosis on paper, along with the date you were told. Those three dates decide which clause you are under and whether either is still open. Medical records showing when the infection was acquired are what carry the case, and records predating the marriage are the most valuable of all. If the five years from the wedding have already run, say so plainly when you consult; it changes which question the lawyer is answering.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Engrace Niñal, et al. vs. Norma Bayadog, G.R. No. 133778, March 14, 2000 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Maria Lina P. Quirit-Figarido vs. Edwin L. Figarido, G.R. No. 259520, November 5,2024 — read the decision on LawPhil →