4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly The RTC further justified its motu proprio dismissal of the petition based on Braza v. The City Civil Registrar of Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental.[25] The Court in Braza ruled that “[i]n a special proceeding for correction of entry under Rule 108 (Cancellation or Correction of Entries in the Original Registry), the trial court has no jurisdiction to nullify marriages x x x.”[26] Braza emphasized that the “validity of marriages as well as legitimacy and filiation can be questioned only in a direct action seasonably filed by the proper party, and not through a collateral attack such as [a] petition [for correction of entry] x x x.”[27] The RTC considered the petition as a collateral attack on the validity of marriage between Marinay and Maekara. The trial court held that this is a “jurisdictional ground” to dismiss the petition.[28] Moreover, the verification and certification against forum shopping of the petition was not authenticated as required under Section 5[29] of A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC. Hence, this also warranted the “immediate dismissal” of the petition under the same provision. The Manifestation and Motion of the Office of the Solicitor General and the Letters of Marinay and Maekara On 30 May 2011, the Court required respondents to file their comment on the petition for review.[30] The public respondents, the Local Civil Registrar of Quezon City and the Administrator and Civil Registrar General of the NSO, participated through the Office of the Solicitor General. Instead of a comment, the Solicitor General filed a Manifestation and Motion.[31] The Solicitor General agreed with the petition. He prayed that the RTC’s “pronouncement that the petitioner failed to comply with x x x A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC x x x be set aside” and that the case be reinstated in the trial court for further proceedings.[32] The Solicitor General argued that Fujiki, as the spouse of the first marriage, is an injured party who can sue to declare the bigamous marriage between Marinay and Maekara void. The Solicitor General cited Juliano-Llave v. Republic[33] which held that Section 2(a) of A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC does not apply in cases of bigamy. In Juliano-Llave, this Court explained: [t]he subsequent spouse may only be expected to take action if he or she had only discovered during the connubial period that the marriage was bigamous, and especially if the conjugal bliss had already vanished. Should parties in a subsequent marriage benefit from the bigamous marriage, it would not be expected that they would file an action to declare the marriage void and thus, in such circumstance, the “injured spouse” who should be given a legal remedy is the one in a subsisting previous marriage. The latter is clearly the aggrieved party as the bigamous marriage not only threatens the financial and the property ownership aspect of the prior marriage but most of all, it causes an emotional burden to the prior spouse. The subsequent marriage will always be a reminder of the infidelity of the spouse elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55916 4/22