MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court has ruled that the 15-year prescriptive period for filing bigamy cases begins upon the actual discovery of the bigamous marriage, not from the date of its registration with the government.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Samuel H. Gaerlan, the Court’s Third Division affirmed the conviction of Erwin Bonbon for bigamy after he married Elizabeth Bonbon in 1999 despite still being legally married to another woman.

Court records revealed that Erwin first wed Gemma Cunada in 1988, then married another woman in 1994, and Elizabeth in 1999—all without legally ending the prior unions.

The case stemmed from the discovery made in 2020 by Erwin’s sisters, who found the 1999 marriage while retrieving documents from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to claim their late mother’s benefits. They filed the case in 2021—22 years after the marriage but just a year after its discovery.

Erwin argued the case was time-barred, asserting that his sisters had known of the marriage since 1999. But the SC found no proof to support this claim. Erwin admitted the wedding was held in another province and that no family members attended.

Upholding the decisions of both the trial and appellate courts, the Supreme Court explained that because bigamous marriages are often concealed, counting the prescriptive period from the date of registration would render prosecution “almost impossible.” The Court ruled that the case, filed in 2021, was within the 15-year legal timeframe since the marriage was only discovered in 2020.

Erwin was sentenced to a prison term of up to eight years and one day.

In a separate concurring opinion, Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa agreed with the ruling but cited recent changes in the law. He referenced Republic Act No. 11909, or the Permanent Validity of the Certificates of Live Birth, Death, and Marriage Act, and the PSA’s digital Civil Registry Database launched in 2022.

Justice Caguioa proposed that Congress require the PSA to notify authorities of multiple marriage registrations. He further suggested a tiered approach to reckoning the 15-year period depending on when the bigamous marriage was contracted and when it was discovered in relation to the database’s launch:

1. From actual discovery for marriages discovered before the digital registry’s creation,
2. From the establishment of the database for earlier marriages found only afterward, and
3. From registration for marriages contracted after the digital system was in place.