Chua Qua v. Clave, G.R.No.

49549, August 30,1990, 189 SCRA 117

Facts: A 30-year-old elementary-school teacher had an affair with, and married, her 16-year-old
student. Evelyn Chua was a teacher in Tay Tung High School in Bacolod City, more specifically the
Grade Six class adviser. One of her pupils was Bobby Qua, who apparently needed remedial
instructions which she extended to him in school after their classroom lessons. In the course of this, the
two fell in love, and with the consent of Bobbys mother, got married in a civil ceremony in Iloilo City
on December 24, 1975, and in a church wedding in Bacolod City on January 10, 1976. Because of this,
Evelyn Chua was fired by the school for IMMORAL CONDUCT.
Issue: Was her dismissal for immoral conduct valid?
Held: No. The Supreme Court declared the dismissal illegal, saying:
If the two eventually fell in love, despite the disparity in their ages and academic levels, this only
lends substance to the truism that the heart has reasons of its own which reason does not know. But,
definitely, yielding to this gentle and universal emotion is not to be so casually equated with
immorality. The deviation of the circumstances of their marriage from the usual societal pattern cannot
be considered as a defiance of contemporary social mores.
the Supreme Court did not consider immoral Evelyn Chua-Quas act of falling in love with, and later
marrying, a boy who was sixteen years her junior, scandalous though it may have been.