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Natividad vs Tunac : 143130 : July 10, 2000 : Atty.
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Home > Philippine Supreme Court Resolutions > Year 2000 > Natividad vs Tunac : 143130 : July 10,
2000 : Atty. Magay-Dris : Second Division:
[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 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 not provide
for a right to relief for cases arising purely from a breach of one's promise to marry another, the chapter
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9/2/2019 Natividad vs Tunac : 143130 : July 10, 2000 : Atty. Magay-Dris : Second Division
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
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE
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.

PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE

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.

Very truly yours,

(Sgd.) TOMASITA B. MAGAY-DRIS

Clerk of Court

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