The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition seeking to allow same-sex marriages due to lack of substance, Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin said on Wednesday.
He said the high court ruling could not even be used as a precedent, referring to the decisions that could be used as a guide in resolving cases with similar issues or facts.
“Right now, that case did not resolve anything about same-sex marriage. The opinions that were expressed there will not be controlling,” Bersamin told reporters.
“We cannot call our decision as a precedent because all of these opinions that they [justices] submitted are merely dictum proprium [personal opinion].”
The petition filed by Jesus Nicardo Falcis III was to nullify Articles 1 and 2 of the Family Code as well as Articles 46 (4) and 55 (6) of the same law. Articles 1 and 2 limited marriages between a man and a woman while Articles 46(4) and 55 (6) mention lesbianism or homosexuality as grounds for annulment and legal separation.
However, the petition was dismissed for violating the principle of hierarchy of courts, failure to raise an actual justiciable controversy and Falcis had no legal standing.
Bersamin said Falcis should have tried applying for a marriage license. “If his application was denied, he would have given more justiciability to his case,” he said.
“But then, we found out that he did not even bother to apply for that license.”