Adong VS Cheong Seng Gee PDF

USA College of Law
NAVA-1E
Case Name MORA ADONG v. CHEONG SENG GEE
Topic Freedom of Religion
Case No. | Date G.R. No. 18081 March 3, 1922
Ponente MALCOLM, J.
RELEVANT FACTS
 Cheong Boo, a native of China died in Zamboanga, Philippine Islands on August 5, 1919 and left property
worth nearly P100,000 which is now being claimed by two parties - (1) Cheong Seng Gee who alleged that he
was a legitimate child by marriage contracted by Cheong Boo with Tan Bit in China in 1985, and (2) Mora
Adong who alleged that she had been lawfully married to Cheong Boo in 1896 in Basilan, Philippine Islands
and had two daughters with the deceased namely Payang and Rosalia.
 The conflicting claims to Cheong Boo’s estate were ventilated in the lower court that ruled that Cheong Seng
Gee failed to sufficiently establish the Chinese marriage through a mere letter testifying that Cheong Boo and
Tan Bit married each other but that because Cheong Seng Gee had been admitted to the Philippine Islands as
the son of the deceased, he should share in the estate as a natural child.
 With reference to the allegations of Mora Adong and her daughters, the trial court reached the
conclusion that the marriage between Adong and Cheong Boo had been adequately proved but that under
the laws of the Philippine Islands it could not be held to be a lawful marriage and thus the daughter Payang and
Rosalia would inherit as natural children. The lower court believes that Mohammedan marriages are not valid
under the Philippine Island’s laws this as an Imam as a solemnizing officer and under Quaranic laws.
ISSUE: 1. WON Chinese marriage between Cheong Boo and Tan Dit is valid.
2. WON Mohammedan marriage between Cheong Boo and Mora Adong is valid
RULING:
 The Supreme Court found the (1) Chinese marriage not proved and Chinaman Cheong Seng Gee has only the rights of a
natural child while (2) it found the Mohammedan marriage to be proved and to be valid, thus giving to the widow Mora
Adong and the legitimate children Payang and Rosalia the rights accruing to them under the law.
 The Supreme Court held that marriage in this jurisdiction is not only a civil contract but it is a new relation, an instruction
in the maintenance of which the public is deeply interested. The presumption as to marriage is that every intendment of
the law leans toward legalizing matrimony. Persons dwelling together inapparent matrimony are presumed, in the
absence of counter-presumption or evidence special to the case, to be in fact married. The reason is that such is the
common order of society, and if the parties were not what they thus hold themselves out as being, they would be living in
the constant violation of decency of the law.
 As to retroactive force, marriage laws is in the nature of a curative provision intended to safeguard society by legalizing
prior marriages. Public policy should aid acts intended to validate marriages and should retard acts intended to invalidate
marriages. This as for public policy, the courts can properly incline the scales of their decision in favor of that solution
which will most effectively promote the public policy.That is the true construction which will best carry legislative
intention into effect. Sec. IV of the Marriage law provides that “all marriages contracted outside the islands, which would
be valid by the laws of the country in which the same were contracted, are valid in these islands.
 To establish a valid foreign marriage pursuant to this comity provision, it is first necessary to prove before the courts of
the Islands the existence of the foreign law as a question of fact, and it is then necessary to prove the alleged foreign
marriage by convincing evidence. A Philippine marriage followed by 23 years of uninterrupted marital life, should not be
impugned and discredited, after the death of the husband through an alleged prior Chinese marriage, “save upon proof
so clear, strong and unequivocal as to produce a moral conviction of the existence of such impediment.” A marriage
alleged to have been contracted in China and proven mainly by a so-called matrimonial letter held not to be valid in the
Philippines.

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