In Republic v. Wong (G.R. No. 276986, February 3, 2026), the Supreme Court held that a husband's decision not to oppose his wife's nullity petition — and his own relatives testifying against him — do not by themselves prove collusion between the spouses. Collusion requires a secret agreement to fabricate or suppress evidence, not merely a shared wish to end the marriage. The Court affirmed the nullity of the marriage on the ground of the husband's psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code.
This case applies Article 36 of the Family Code. Read the provision itself: Family Code, Article 36 — full text, annotation and interpreting cases.
What the Court Actually Held
The Supreme Court's Third Division, in a Decision penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh, denied the Office of the Solicitor General's (OSG) petition asking the Court to reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that had declared a marriage void on the ground of psychological incapacity. The OSG's central argument was that the spouses had colluded: the husband did not file an answer or oppose the petition, did not appear at trial, and his own father and cousin testified about his abusive conduct — with the father admitting on cross-examination that he had discussed his testimony with his son beforehand.
The Court rejected that argument. It defined collusion, citing the 1960 case De Ocampo v. Florenciano, as "the agreement between husband and wife for one of them to commit, or to appear to commit, or to be represented in court as having committed, a matrimonial offense, or to suppress evidence of a valid defense." That is a specific, deliberate scheme to defraud the court — not simply an absence of opposition. In the Court's words: "the parties' mutual desire to void their marriage does not necessarily equate to collusion. A lack of objection is not the same as collusion." It added that "the severity of the spouses' marital conflicts is reason enough to encourage relatives from both sides to come forward and testify," and, citing Puyat v. Puyat, that a respondent's failure to testify or present evidence "should not be automatically equated to the presumption of collusion."
Notably, the trial-level anti-collusion safeguard had already worked as designed: when the husband failed to answer the petition, the Regional Trial Court ordered the Provincial Prosecutor to investigate for collusion, as Article 48 of the Family Code and the Rule on Declaration of Absolute Nullity of Void Marriages and Annulment of Voidable Marriages (A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC) require. The prosecutor's investigation report found no collusion. It was only later, on appeal to the Supreme Court, that the OSG argued the trial court's own language about the credibility of the husband's relatives amounted to a collusion finding it had never actually made. The Supreme Court's ruling closes that gap: suspicion about witness motives, on its own, is not a substitute for actual proof of a secret agreement to defraud the court.
Having disposed of the collusion argument, the Court went on to affirm that the husband's psychological incapacity was established by the required "totality of evidence" — disappearing for days early in the marriage, chronic infidelity, financial irresponsibility, and abuse corroborated by the wife, her mother, and the husband's own father and cousin, together with a psychologist's evaluation. The Court closed with language likely to be quoted in future petitions: "Marriage, in its truest form, must be a sanctuary: a space of mutual respect, care, and emotional safety. It must never become a chain that binds a person to a relationship that is not only fundamentally flawed, but damaging."
What Changed, and What Didn't
The core three-characteristic test for psychological incapacity under Article 36 — gravity, juridical antecedence, and incurability, as most recently reframed in Tan-Andal v. Andal — is untouched by this ruling. What Wong clarifies is narrower but practically significant: it draws a sharper line around what counts as "collusion" for purposes of Article 48 and A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC. Before this decision, the OSG had argued, and some petitioners worried, that a respondent-spouse's silence, non-appearance, or willingness to see the marriage end — especially when combined with sympathetic testimony from that spouse's own family — could be read by an appellate court as circumstantial proof of collusion, even after a public prosecutor had already cleared the case. Wong forecloses that reading. Collusion now requires the OSG or the court to point to actual evidence of a scheme to fabricate or hide facts, not merely to the convenience of an uncontested outcome.
Who This Affects
This decision speaks directly to the single most common fact pattern this firm sees in nullity and annulment practice: both spouses privately agree the marriage should end, and the respondent-spouse does not want to fight the case in court. Under the old uncertainty, that scenario invited exactly the kind of appellate challenge the OSG raised in Wong — turning an uncontested, sympathetic case into a multi-year Supreme Court battle over collusion, even though a prosecutor had already investigated and found none. Petitioners in that position, and family members willing to testify in support of a petition, now have clearer Supreme Court authority that their cooperation and candor will not itself be mistaken for a conspiracy against the court.
It also matters for how a petition is built from the outset. Because the Court's reasoning turned on there being no evidence of an actual scheme — not on the mere fact that testimony favored the petitioner — the practical safeguard remains the same one A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC has always required: a genuine, unrehearsed investigation by the public prosecutor, and evidence that stands on its own facts rather than on the parties' say-so alone.
What It Means in Practice
- An uncontested Article 36 petition is not, by itself, evidence of collusion. A respondent-spouse can decline to answer or appear without dooming the case to a collusion challenge.
- Relatives of the respondent-spouse may testify in support of the petitioner without their relationship alone discrediting their testimony, though courts will still scrutinize credibility on the merits.
- The public prosecutor's collusion investigation under A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC remains a mandatory, meaningful step — not a formality that can later be overridden by an appellate court's speculation about witness motives.
- Petitioners should still expect the OSG to test the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal; Wong narrows the collusion argument, but it does not relax the underlying burden of proving psychological incapacity by clear and convincing evidence.
This commentary is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a licensed attorney.
If you are considering a petition for declaration of nullity or annulment, or have questions about a pending case involving a collusion investigation, our firm is available to help. You may reach us via Viber or WhatsApp, call us at 0995 433 5550, or send an email to vivasnobles@gmail.com.