had already been much publicized in their town.
This contention has no merit. As correctly pointed out by the Court of Appeals, our laws do
[G.R. No. 143130. July 10, 2000]
ELSA NATIVIDAD, et al. vs. RONALD TUNAC, et al.
SECOND DIVISION
Gentlemen:
Quoted hereunder, for your information, is a resolution of this Court dated JUL 10 2000.
G.R. No. 143130. (Elsa Natividad, et al. vs. Ronald Tunac, et al.)
This case originated in a complaint for damages filed by petitioner Elsa Natividad against
respondent Ronald Tunac for breach of promise to marry. The Regional Trial Court, Branch
81, Quezon City rendered judgment for petitioner, ordering respondent to pay moral and
exemplary damages, but, on appeal, the decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals.
Hence, this petition for review on certiorari.
It appears that petitioner Elsa Natividad and respondent Ronald Tunac grew up together in
Barangay Quiling, Talisay, Batangas where their respective parents, petitioners Marino and
Clarita Natividad and respondent Eusebio and Elisa Tunac, resided. At age nineteen (19),
the two became lovers. One day, Ronald asked Elsa to go with him to his boarding house in
Pasig City to get the bio-data which he needed in connection with his application for
employment. Upon arrival at the boarding house, they found no one there. Ronald asked
Elsa to go with him inside his room and, once inside, started kissing Elsa until he succeeded
in making love with her. Elsa cried at the loss of her virginity, but Ronald appeased her by
promising to marry her.
Their intimate relations continued, resulting in Elsa getting pregnant sometime in June
1992. Ronald reassured her, again promising her marriage. True enough, on October 31,
1992, Ronald and his parents, accompanied by several relatives numbering twenty in all,
went to Elsa's house and asked her parents for the hand of their daughter.
The two families agreed to have the wedding in January 1993 as Elsa's sister had gotten
married that year, and they thought it was not good to have two weddings in a family within
the same year. Meanwhile, Elsa started living with Ronald in the house of the latter's family
while waiting for the baby to be born. Unfortunately, on December 19, 1992, Elsa gave birth
to a premature baby which died after five (5) hours in the incubator. After Elsa's discharge
from the hospital, the two families decided that Elsa should go back to her parents so her
mother could take care of her during her postnatal period. During said period, Ronald
occasionally slept in Elsa's house.
It seems that after Elsa's miscarriage, a marked change in Ronald's attitude towards the
former occurred. In January of 1993, the Natividads confronted the Tunacs. In that
meeting, Ronald informed Elsa that he no longer wanted to get married to her. Hence, this
case.
Petitioners succinctly contend they are suing respondents not merely because Elsa became
pregnant but because Ronald reneged on his promise to marry her after their agreement
not provide for a right to relief for cases arising purely from a breach of one's promise to
marry another, the chapter on breach of promise to marry proposed by the Code
Commission having been deleted by Congress in enacting the Civil Code apparently because
of lessons from other countries, particularly the United States and England, that the action
readily lends itself to abuse by designing women and unscrupulous men (Congressional
Record, vol. IV, No. 79, 14 May 1949, 2352).
In cases where this Court has allowed moral or exemplary damages arising from similar
circumstances, there was found moral seduction or misrepresentation (Gashem Shookat
Basksh v. Court of Appeals (219 SCRA 115 (1993)); Hermosisima v. Court of Appeals (109
Phil. 629 (1960)). In Baksh, it was held -
[T]hat where a man's promise to marry is in fact the proximate
cause of the acceptance of his love by a woman and his
representation to fulfill that promise thereafter becomes the
proximate cause of the giving of herself unto him in a sexual
congress, proof that he had, in reality, no intention of marrying
her and that the promise was only a subtle scheme or deceptive
device to entice or inveigle her to accept him and to obtain her
consent to the sexual act, could justify the award of damages
pursuant to Article 21 not because of such promise to marry but
because of the fraud and deceit behind it and the willful injury
to her honor and reputation which followed thereafter. It is
essential, however, that such injury should have been
committed in a manner contrary to morals, good customs, or
public policy.
(Id., p. 128)
In the case at bar, it is clear that no moral seduction was employed by Ronald, much less
by his parents. Form the narration of the trial court, the evident conclusion is that the two
became lovers before they engaged in any sexual intercourse. Also, the moral seduction
contemplated by the Code Commission in drafting Article 21 of the Civil Code is one where
the defendant is in a position of moral ascendancy in relation to the plaintiff. We fail to see
any of these circumstances in this case.
In addition, as the trial court noted, marriage plans were in fact arranged between the
families of the parties. That their relationship turned sour afterwards, or immediately after
Elsa's miscarriage, is already beyond the punitive scope of our laws. This is simply a case of
a relationship gone awry.
For the foregoing reasons, the petition is DENIED for lack of merit.