THE solicitor general asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to dismiss a petition seeking to allow same-sex marriage in the country because he failed to prove that he had suffered injury from the state policy, erroneously impleaded the wrong parties and raised a matter lacking importance.
Commenting on the petition of lawyer Jesus Nicardo Falcis III last year, Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said Falcis’ admission of his homosexuality was not enough to prove that he was legally a party of interest in questioning the constitutionality of the Family Code.
In his petition, Falcis argued that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the rights of homosexuals and lesbians to due process and equal protection, to decisional and marital privacy, and to found a family in accordance with their religious or irreligious convictions.
The Family Code defines marriage as “a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life” and “the foundation of the family and inviolable social institution.”
“[But] in the language of doctrine, [Falcis] has not demonstrated any ‘injury in fact’ from the operation of the Family Code… Whatever injury petitioner feels is non-particularized for the reason that his interest is shared with the entire universe of people who agree with his advocacy,” Hilbay said.
He disputed Falcis’ assertion that his ability to find long-term and monogamous same-sex relationship “is impaired because of the absence of a legal incentive for gay individuals to seek such relationship.”
Hilbay said such a claim “demeans the capacity of homosexuals to enter into committed relationship,” adding that no evidence was presented to prove that an across-the-board, systematic incentive “will lead gay individuals to choose petitioner over any other homosexual.”
The chief state lawyer also said Falcis erred in impleading Civil Registrar-General instead of naming the Congress as respondent in this case.
“The Congress is an indispensable party in this case because the petition’s cause of action is directed against a legislative policy, not an administrative concern that the respondent Civil Registrar-General can act upon,” the OSG pointed out.
“Petitioner does not show how the Civil Registrar-General could have acted in grave abuse of discretion in relation to applications for a marriage license,” it said.
Hilbay also noted that the petitioner sought the wrong relief from the high court since issuance of writs of prohibition and certiorari “would not lead to the recognition of same-sex marriages, which requires a positive act from Congress.”
He further argued that petitioner violated the hierarchy of courts and that the petition should have been filed before lower courts first and not with the SC, which a court of last resort, not a court of first instance.
Lastly, Hilbay cited the lack of transcendental importance of the case.
“In the present case, the Honorable Court would have no case law, much less any factual elements mixed in the judicial cauldron, that would help it ‘explain and formulate the underlying principles’ about the constitutional status of same-sex marriage in the Philippines,” he said.
