G.R. No. L-23253. March 28, 1969
IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION FOR BETTY CHUA SY ALIAS “GRACE CABANGBANG” FOR THE ISSUANCE OF A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS. PACITA CHUA, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, VS. MR. & MRS. BARTOLOME…
RUIZ CASTRO, J.:
This is an appeal direct to this Court from the decision of May 21, 1964 of the Court of First
Instance of Rizal dismissing Pacita
Chua’s petition for habeas corpus directed against Bartolome Cabangbang and his
wife Flora Cabangbang.
Pacita Chua, when still in the prime of
youth, supported herself by working in nightclubs as a hostess. And sexual liaison she had with man after man
without benefit of marriage. She first
lived with a certain Chua Ben in 1950 by whom she had a child who died in
infancy. She afterwards cohabited with Sy Sia Lay by whom she had two
children named Robert and Betty Chua Sy. The latter child was born on December 15, 1957. Shortly after the birth of Betty, Pacita Chua and Sy Sia Lay separated.
Finding no one to fall back on after their separation, Pacita Chua lingered in and around nightclubs and gambling
joints, until she met Victor Tan Villareal. In due time she became the latter’s
mistress. In 1960 another child, a girl,
was born to her. In 1961 when this last
child was still an, infant, she and Villareal
separated. Without means to support the
said child, Pacita Chua gave her away to a comadre in Cebu.
Sometime in May 1958 Bartolorne Cabangbang and his wife, a childless couple, acquired the custody
of the child Betty who was then barely four months old. They have since brought her up as their
own. They had her christened as Grace Cabangbang on September
12, 1958.[1]
There is some testimonial conflict on how the Cabangbang
spouses acquired custody of the girl Betty (or Grace). Pacita Chua avers
that in October 1958, while she and Villareal were
still living together, the latter surreptitiously took the child away and gave
her to the Cabangbangs, allegedly in recompense for
favors received. She supposedly came to
know of the whereabouts of her daughter only in 1960 when the girl, who was
then about three years old, was brought to her by Villareal,
who shortly thereafter returned the child to the Cabangbangs
allegedly thru threats, intimidation, fraud and deceit. The Cabangbang
spouses assert in rebuttal that Mrs. Cabangbang found
the child, wrapped in a bundle, at the gate of their residence; that she reared
her as her own and grew very fond of her; and that nobody ever molested them
until the child was 5-1/2 years of age.
At all events, it is the lower court’s finding that the child was
given to the Cabangbang spouses by Villareal with the knowledge and consent of Pacita Chua.
By letter dated June 6,
1963 addressed to the Cabangbang spouses,
with copy furnished to Villareal, Pacita
Chua thru counsel demanded the surrender to her of the custody of the
child. Failing to secure such custody, Pacita Chua (hereinafter referred to as the petitioner)
filed on June 14, 1963 a
petition for habeas corpus with the Court of First Instance of Rizal, praying that the court grant her custody of and
recognize her parental authority over the girl.
Named respondents in the petition were Villareal
and the spouses Cabangbang.
On June 15, 1963
a writ was issued commanding the provincial sheriff of Rizal
or any of his deputies to produce the body of Betty Chua Sy
or Grace Cabangbang before the court a quo
on June 17, 1963, at 8:30 a.m.
However, for reasons not stated in the record, the child was not
produced before the lower court as ordered.
On June 21, 1963
Villareal filed his answer to the petition. The Cabangbangs
filed their answer the next day.
After due trial the lower court on May 21, 1964 promulgated its decision, the dispositive portion of which reads as follows:
“IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the Court has come to the
conclusion that it will be for the welfare of the child Betty Chua Sy also known as Grace Cabangbang
to be under the custody of respondents Mr. and Mrs. Bartolome
Cabangbang.
Petition dismissed. No
pronouncement as to costs.”
In this appeal now before us, the petitioner tenders for resolution
two issues of law which, by her own formulation, read as follows: “The lower court erred when it [1]
awarded the custody of petitioner’s daughter Betty Chua Sy
or Grace Cabangbang, who is less than seven (7) years
old, in favor of respondents Mr. and Mrs. Bartolome Cabangbang, and [2] illegally deprived petitioner of parental
authority over her daughter.”
We resolve both issues against the petitioner.
I.
Stated succinctly, the petitioner’s thesis is that pursuant to
the mandate contained in article 363 of the Civil Code she cannot be separated
from her child who was less than seven years of age, and that she cannot be
deprived of her parental authority over the child because not one of the
grounds for the termination, loss, suspension or deprivation of parental
authority provided in article 332 of the same Code obtains in this case.
Whether the petitioner can be legally separated from her child,
Betty Chua Sy or Grace Cabangbang,
is an issue that is now moot and academic.
Having been born on December
15, 1957, the child is now 11 years of age. Consequently, the second paragraph of art.
363 of the Civil Code, which prohibits the separation of a child under seven
years of age from her mother, “unless the court finds compelling reasons
for such measure, has no immediate relevance.
The petitioner correctly argues, however, that the reasons relied
upon by the lower court – i.e., “petitioner is not exactly an upright
woman” and “it will be for the welfare of the child” – are not,
strictly speaking, proper grounds in law to deprive a mother of her inherent
right to parental authority over her child.
It must be conceded that minor children – be they legitimate, recognized
natural, adopted, natural by legal fiction or illegitimate, other than natural
as specified in art. 269 of the Civil Code – are by law under the parental
authority of both the father and the mother, or either the father or the mother,
as the case may be. But we take the view
that on the basis of the aforecited seemingly
unpersuasive factual premises, the petitioner can be deprived of her parental
authority. For while in one breath art.
313 of the Civil Code lays down the rule that “Parental authority cannot
be renounced or transferred, except in cases of guardianship or adoption
approved by the courts, or emancipation by concession,” it indicates in
the next that “The courts may, in cases specified by law, deprive parents
of their [parental] authority.” And there are indeed valid reasons, as
will presently be expounded, for depriving the petitioner of parental authority
over the minor Betty Chua Sy or Grace Cabangbang.
It is the lower court’s finding that the child was given to the Cabangbangs by Villareal with the
knowledge and consent of the petitioner.
In support of this finding, it cited the facts that the petitioner did
not at all – not ever – report to the authorities the alleged disappearance of
her daughter, and had not taken any step to see the child when she allegedly
discovered that she was in the custody of the Cabangbangs. It discounted the petitioner’s claim that she
did not make any move to recover the child because the Cabangbangs
are powerful and influential. The petitioner
is bound by the foregoing findings of fact.
Having taken her appeal directly to this Court, she is deemed to have
waived the right to dispute any finding of fact made by the trial court.[2]
Art. 332 of the Civil Code provides, inter alia:
“The courts may deprive the parents of their authority or
suspend the exercise of the same if they should treat their children with
excessive harshness or should give them corrupting orders, counsels, or
examples, or should make them beg or abandon them.” (emphasis supplied)
Abandonment is therefore one of the
grounds for depriving parents of parental authority over their children.
Was the petitioner’s acquiescence to the giving by Villareal of her child to the Cabangbangs
tantamount to abandonment of the child?
To our mind, mere acquiescence – without more – is not sufficient to
constitute abandonment. But the record
yields a host of circumstances which, in their totality, unmistakably betray
the petitioner’s settled purpose and intention to completely forego all parental
responsibilities and forever relinquish all parental claim in respect to the
child.
She surrendered the custody of her child to the Cabangbangs in 1958.
She waited until 1963, or after the lapse of a period of five long
years, before she brought action to recover custody. Her claim that she did not take any step to
recover her child because the Cabangbangs were
powerful and influential, does not deserve any modicum of credence. A mother who really loves her child
would go to any extent to be reunited with her.
The natural and normal reaction of the petitioner – once informed, as
she alleged, that her child was in the custody of the Cabangbangs
– should have been to move heaven and earth, to use a worn-out but still respectable
cliché, in order to recover her. Yet she
lifted not a finger.
It is a matter of record – being the gist of her own unadulterated
testimony under oath – that she wants the child back so that Sy Sia Lay, the alleged father,
would resume providing the petitioner the support which he peremptorily
withheld and ceased to give when she gave the child away. A woman scorned, she desires to recover the
child as a means of embarrassing Villareal who
retrieved the jeep he gave her and altogether stopped living with and
supporting her. But the record likewise
reveals that at the pre-trial conducted by the court a quo, she
expressed her willingness that the child remain with the Cabangbangs
provided latter would in exchange give her a jeep and some money.
The petitioner’s inconsistent demands in the course of the
proceedings below, reveal that her motives do not flow from the wellsprings of
a loving mother’s heart. Upon the
contrary, they are unmistakably selfish – nay, mercenary. She needs the child as a leverage to obtain
concessions – financial and otherwise – either from the alleged father or the Cabangbangs. If she
gets the child back, support for her would be forthcoming – or so she thinks –
from the alleged father, Sy Sia
Lay. On the other hand, if the Cabangbangs would keep the child, she would agree provided
they gave her a jeep and some money.
Indeed, the petitioner’s attitude, to our mind, does nothing but
confirm her intention to abandon the child – from the very outset when she allowed
Villareal to give her away to the Cabangbangs. It must be noted that the abandonment took
place when the child, barely four months old, was at the most fragile stage of
life and needed the utmost care and solicitude of her mother. And for five long years thereafter she did
not once move to recover the child. She
continuously shunned the natural and legal obligations which she owed to the
child; completely withheld her presence, her love, her care, and the opportunity
to display maternal affection; and totally denied her support and
maintenance. Her silence and inaction
have been prolonged to such a point that her abandonment of the child and her
total relinquishment of parental claim over her, can and should be inferred as
a matter of law.[3]
Note that this was not the only instance when she gave away a
child of her own flesh and blood. She
gave up her youngest child, named Betty Tan Villareal,
to her comadre in Cebu because she could not support it.
Of incalculable significance is the fact that nowhere in the
course of the petitioner’s lengthy testimony did she ever express a genuine
desire to recover her child Betty Chua Sy or Grace Cabangbang – or, for that matter, her other child Betty Tan
Villareal because she loves her, cares for her, and
wants to smother her with motherly affections.
Far from it. She wants Betty Chua
Sy or Grace Cabangbang back
so that the alleged father would resume giving her (the petitioner)
support. She wants her back to humiliate
and embarrass the respondent Villareal who, with her
knowledge and consent, gave the child to the Cabangbangs. But – “most unkindest cut of all”
– she nevertheless signified her readiness to give up the child, in exchange
for a jeep and some money.
We therefore affirm the lower court’s decision, not on the
grounds cited by it, but upon a ground which the court overlooked – i.e., abandonment
by the petitioner of her child.[4]
Contrast the petitioner’s attitude with that of the respondents Cabangbang – especially the respondent Flora Cabangbang who, from the moment the child was given to
them, took care of her as if she were her own flesh and blood, had her
baptized, and when she reached school age enrolled her in a reputable exclusive
school for girls.
Ironically enough, the real heart-rending tragedy in this case
would consist not in taking the child away from the Cabangbangs
but in returning her to the custody of the petitioner.
For, by her own admission, the petitioner has no regular source
of income, and it is doubtful, to say the very least, that she can provide the
child with the barest necessities of life, let alone send her to school. There is no assurance at all that the alleged
father, Sy Sia Lay an
unknown quantity, as far as the record goes – would resume giving the
petitioner support once she and the child are reunited. What would then prevent the petitioner from
again doing that which she did before, i.e., give her away? These are of course conjectures, but when the
welfare of a helpless child is at stake, it is the bounden duty of courts –
which they cannot shirk – to respect, enforce, and give meaning and substance
to a child’s natural and legal right to live and grow in the proper physical,
moral and intellectual environment.[5]
This is not to say that with the Cabangbang
spouses, a bright and secure future is guaranteed for her. For life is beset at every turn with snares
and pitfalls. But the record indubitably
pictures the Cabangbang spouses as a, childless
couple of consequence in the community, who have given her their name and are
rearing her as their very own child, and with whom there is every reason to
hope she will have a fair chance of normal growth and development into
respectable womanhood.
Verily, to surrender the girl to the petitioner would be to
assume – quite incorrectly – that only mothers are capable of parental love and
affection. Upon the contrary, this case
precisely underscores the homiletic admonition that parental love is not
universal and immutable like a law of natural science.
II.
The petitioner assails as illegal and without basis the award of
the custody of Grace Cabangbang or Betty Chua Sy to the Cabangbang spouses
upon the grounds, first, that the couple are not related by consanguinity or
affinity to the child, and second, because the answer of the spouses contains
no prayer for the custody of the child.
The absence of any kinship between the child and the Cabangbangs alone cannot serve to bar the lower court from
awarding her custody to them. Indeed,
the law provides that in certain cases the custody of a child may be awarded
even to strangers, as against either the father or the mother or against
both. Thus, in proceedings involving a
child whose parents are separated – either legally or de facto –
and where it appears that both parents are improper persons to whom, to entrust
the care, custody and control of the child, “the court may either
designate the paternal or maternal grandparent of the child, or his oldest
brother or sister, or some reputable and discreet person to take charge
of such child, or commit it to any suitable asylum, children’s home, or
benevolent society.”[6]
Parenthetically, sections 6 and 7 of Rule 99 of the Rules of
Court belie the petitioner’s contention that the first sentence of art. 363 of
the Civil Code, which states that
“In all questions on the care, custody, education and
property of children, the latter’s welfare shall be paramount. …,”
applies only when the litigation
involving a child is between the father and the mother. That the policy enunciated in the above
quoted legal provision is of general application, is evident from the use of
the adjective all – meaning, the whole extent or quantity of, the entire
number of, every one of.[7]
It is, therefore, error to argue that if the suit involving a child’s custody
is between a parent and a stranger, the law must necessarily award such custody
to the parent. Sec. 7, Rule 99 of the
Rules a Court, precisely contemplates, among others, a suit between a parent
and a stranger who, in the words of the provision, is “some reputable
resident of the province.” And
under the authority of the said rule the court – if it is for the best interest
of the child – may take the child away from its parents and commit it to, inter
alia, a benevolent person.
The petitioner’s contention that the answer of the spouses Cabangbang contains no prayer for the retention by them of
the custody of the child, is equally devoid of merit. The several moves taken by them are clear and
definitive enough. First, they asked for
her custody pendente lite. Second, they sought the dismissal of the
petition below for lack of merit.
Finally, they added a general prayer for other reliefs
just and equitable in the premises. Surely the above reliefs
prayed for are clearly indicative of the Cabangbangs‘
genuine desire to retain the custody of Betty Chua Sy
or Grace Cabangbang.
III.
Sec. 1, Rule 102 of the Rules of Court provides that “Except
as otherwise expressly provided by law the writ of habeas corpus
shall extend to all cases of illegal confinement or detention by which any
person is deprived of his liberty, or by which the rightful custody of any
person is withheld from the person entitled thereto.” The petitioner has
not proven that she is entitled to the rightful custody of Betty Chua Sy or Grace Cabangbang. Upon the contrary, by want only and
completely shunting aside her legal and moral obligations toward her child, she
must be deemed as having forfeited all legitimate legal and moral claim to her
custody. The lower court; acted correctly
in dismissing her petition.
ACCORDINGLY, the judgment a quo is
affirmed. No pronouncement as to
costs.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, JBL, Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Fernando, Capistrano, Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ., concur.
[1]
Exhibit 5.
[2] Savellano vs. Diaz, et al., L-17944, July 31, 1963; Cabrera vs. Tiano, L-17299, July
31, 1963.
[3]
25 A.L.R. 2d, p. 667, citing Re Bistany (1924)
239 NY 19, 145 – NE 70; Re Anonymous (1942) 178 Misc
142, 33 NYS2d 793; Re Anonymous (1949) 195 Misc 6, 88
NYS2d 829; Re Greenfield (1952, Sur) 109 NYS2d 462;
Re Asterbloorn (1946) 63 Nev
190, 165 P2d 157; Re MacLean (1919) 109 Misc 479,
179, NYS 182.
[4]
Garcia Valdez vs. Soteraña Tuason, 40 Phil. 943,
951; Relativo vs. Castro, 76 Phil. 653; Carillo vs. De Paz, L-22601, Oct. 28, 1966, 18 SCRA 467.
[5]
See art. 356(4), Civil Code.
[6]
See sec. 6, Rule 99, Rules of Court. See also sec. 7, id.
[7]
Webster’s New Word Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition, 1959
ed., p. 38.