G.R. No.

101749 July 10, 1992

CONRADO BUNAG, JR., petitioner,
vs.
HON. COURT OF APPEALS, First Division, and ZENAIDA B. CIRILO, respondents.
REGALADO, J.:

FACTS:

On the afternoon of September 8, 1973, defendant-appellant Bunag, Jr. brought plaintiff-

appellant to a motel or hotel where they had sexual intercourse. Later that evening, said
defendant-appellant brought plaintiff-appellant to the house of his grandmother Juana de Leon
in Pamplona, Las Piñas, Metro Manila, where they lived together as husband and wife for 21
days, or until September 29, 1973. On September 10, 1973, defendant-appellant Bunag, Jr. and
plaintiff-appellant filed their respective applications for a marriage license with the Office of the
Local Civil Registrar of Bacoor, Cavite. On October 1, 1973, after leaving plaintiff-appellant,
defendant-appellant Bunag, Jr. filed an affidavit withdrawing his application for a marriage
license.

But the version of the girl in this case was different. Accordingly, the petitioner abducted her,
raped her with the help of his companion and then promised to marry her so he would not be
charged with Rape.

ISSUE: w/n the defendant appellant has to pay for the damages as ordered by the court when in
fact it was not breach of contract but only a breach of promise to marry and no money or
property incurred for the wedding.

RULING: the petition is DENIED for lack of merit, and the assailed judgment and resolution are
hereby AFFIRMED.

It is true that breach of promise to marry has no standing in the civil law, apart from the
right to recover money or property advanced by the plaintiff upon the faith of such promise,
therefore, a breach of promise to marry per se is not actionable, except where the plaintiff has
actually incurred expenses for the wedding and the necessary incidents thereof.

However, the award of moral damages is allowed in cases specified in or

analogous to those provided in Article 2219 of the Civil Code. Correlatively, under Article
21 of said Code, in relation to paragraph 10 of said Article 2219, any person who wilfully
causes loss or injury to another in a manner that is contrary to morals, good customs or
public policy shall compensate the latter for moral damages. Article 21 was adopted to
remedy the countless gaps in the statutes which leave so many victims of moral wrongs
helpless even though they have actually suffered material and moral injury, and is
intended to vouchsafe adequate legal remedy for that untold number of moral wrongs
which is impossible for human foresight to specifically provide for in the statutes.

Under the circumstances obtaining in the case at bar, the acts of petitioner in forcibly abducting
private respondent and having carnal knowledge with her against her will, and thereafter promising to
marry her in order to escape criminal liability, only to thereafter renege on such promise after cohabiting
with her for twenty-one days, irremissibly constitute acts contrary to morals and good customs.

Generally, the basis of civil liability from crime is the fundamental postulate of our law that every
person criminally liable for a felony is also civilly liable. In other words, criminal liability will give rise to civil
liability ex delicto only if the same felonious act or omission results in damage or injury to another and is
the direct and proximate cause thereof. Hence, extinction of the penal action does not carry with it the
extinction of civil liability unless the extinction proceeds from a declaration in a final judgment that the fact
from which the civil might arise did not exist.

Plaintiff-appellant (woman) contends that on the afternoon of September 8, 1973, defendant-appellant

Bunag, Jr., together with an unidentified male companion, abducted her in the vicinity of the San Juan de
Dios Hospital in Pasay City and brought her to a motel where she was raped. The court a quo, which
adopted her evidence, summarized the same which we paraphrased as follows:

Plaintiff was 26 years old on November 5, 1974 when she testified, single and had finished a college
course in Commerce (t.s.n., p. 4, Nov. 5, 1974). It appears that on September 8, 1973, at about 4:00
o'clock in the afternoon, while she was walking along Figueras Street, Pasay City on her way to the San
Juan de Dios Canteen to take her snack, defendant, Conrado Bunag, Jr., came riding in a car driven by a
male companion. Plaintiff and defendant Bunag, Jr. were sweethearts, but two weeks before September
8, 1973, they had a quarrel, and Bunag, Jr. wanted to talk matters over with plaintiff, so that he invited her
to take their merienda at the Aristocrat Restaurant in Manila instead of at the San Juan de Dios Canteen,
to which plaintiff obliged, as she believed in his sincerity (t.s.n., pp. 8-10, Nov. 5, 1974).

Plaintiff rode in the car and took the front seat beside the driver while Bunag, Jr. seated himself by her
right side. The car travelled north on its way to the Aristocrat Restaurant but upon reaching San Juan
Street in Pasay City, it turned abruptly to the right, to which plaintiff protested, but which the duo ignored
and instead threatened her not to make any noise as they were ready to die and would bump the car
against the post if she persisted. Frightened and silenced, the car travelled its course thru F.B. Harrison
Boulevard until they reached a motel. Plaintiff was then pulled and dragged from the car against her will,
and amidst her cries and pleas. In spite of her struggle she was no match to the joint strength of the two
male combatants because of her natural weakness being a woman and her small stature. Eventually, she
was brought inside the hotel where the defendant Bunag, Jr. deflowered her against her will and consent.
She could not fight back and repel the attack because after Bunag, Jr. had forced her to lie down and
embraced her, his companion held her two feet, removed her panty, after which he left. Bunag, Jr.
threatened her that he would ask his companion to come back and hold her feet if she did not surrender
her womanhood to him, thus he succeeded in feasting on her virginity. Plaintiff described the pains she
felt and how blood came out of her private parts after her vagina was penetrated by the penis of the
defendant Bunag, Jr. (t.s.n. pp. 17-24, Nov. 5, 1974).
After that outrage on her virginity, plaintiff asked Bunag, Jr. once more to allow her to go home but the
latter would not consent and stated that he would only let her go after they were married as he intended
to marry her, so much so that she promised not to make any scandal and to marry him. Thereafter, they
took a taxi together after the car that they used had already gone, and proceeded to the house of Juana
de Leon, Bunag, Jr.'s grandmother in Pamplona, Las Piñas, Metro Manila where they arrived at 9:30
o'clock in the evening (t.s.n., p. 26, Nov. 5, 1974). At about ten (10) o'clock that same evening, defendant
Conrado Bunag, Sr., father of Bunag, Jr. arrived and assured plaintiff that the following day which was a
Monday, she and Bunag, Jr. would go to Bacoor, to apply for a marriage license, which they did. They
filed their applications for marriage license (Exhibits "A" and "C") and after that plaintiff and defendant
Bunag, Jr. returned to the house of Juana de Leon and lived there as husband and wife from September
8, 1973 to September 29, 1973.

On September 29, 1973 defendant Bunag, Jr. left and never returned, humiliating plaintiff and compelled
her to go back to her parents on October 3, 1973. Plaintiff was ashamed when she went home and could
not sleep and eat because of the deception done against her by defendants-appellants (t.s.n., p. 35, Nov.
5, 1974).

The testimony of plaintiff was corroborated in toto by her uncle, Vivencio Bansagan who declared that on
September 8, 1973 when plaintiff failed to arrive home at 9:00 o'clock in the evening, his sister who is the
mother of plaintiff asked him to look for her but his efforts proved futile, and he told his sister that plaintiff
might have married (baka nag-asawa, t.s.n., pp. 5-6, March 18, 1976). However, in the afternoon of the
next day (Sunday), his sister told him that Francisco Cabrera, accompanied by barrio captain Jacinto
Manalili of Ligas, Bacoor, Cavite, informed her that plaintiff and Bunag, Jr. were in Cabrera's house, so
that her sister requested him to go and see the plaintiff, which he did, and at the house of Mrs. Juana de
Leon in Pamplona, Las Piñas, Metro Manila he met defendant Conrado Bunag, Sr., who told him, "Pare,
the children are here already. Let us settle the matter and have them married."

He conferred with plaintiff who told him that as she had already lost her honor, she would bear her
sufferings as Boy Bunag, Jr. and his father promised they would be married.

Defendants-appellants, on the other hand, deny that defendant-appellant Conrado Bunag, Jr. abducted
and raped plaintiff-appellant on September 8, 1973. On the contrary, plaintiff-appellant and defendant-
appellant Bunag, Jr. eloped on that date because of the opposition of the latter's father to their
relationship.

Counter claim of Bunag, Jr. was that, he and plaintiff-appellant had earlier made plans to elope and get
married, and this fact was known to their friends, They got a room at the Holiday Hotel, where defendant-
appellant registered using his real name and residence certificate number. Three hours later, the couple
check out of the hotel and proceeded to the house of Juana de Leon at Pamplona, Las Piñas, where they
stayed until September 19, 1873. Defendant-appellant claims that bitter disagreements with the plaintiff-
appellant over money and the threats made to his life prompted him to break off their plan to get married.
During this period, defendant-appellant Bunag, Sr. denied having gone to the house of Juan de Leon and
telling plaintiff-appellant that she would be wed to defendant-appellant Bunag, Jr. In fact, he phoned Atty.
Conrado Adreneda, three times between the evening of September 8, 1973 and September 9, 1973
inquiring as to the whereabouts of his son. He came to know about his son's whereabouts when he was
told of the couple's elopement late in the afternoon of September 9, 1973 by his mother Candida
Gawaran. He likewise denied having met relatives and emissaries of plaintiff-appellant and agreeing to
her marriage to his son.

Hence, A complaint for damages for alleged breach of promise to marry was filed by private respondent
Zenaida B. Cirilo against petitioner Conrado Bunag, Jr. and his father, Conrado Bunag, Sr., of the
Regional Trial Court, Branch XIX at Bacoor, Cavite. On August 20, 1983, on a finding, inter alia, that
petitioner had forcibly abducted and raped private respondent, the trial court rendered a decision ordering
petitioner Bunag, Jr. to pay private respondent P80,000.00 as moral damages, P20,000.00 as exemplary
damages, P20,000.00 by way of temperate damages, and P10,000.00 for and as attorney's fees, as well
as the costs of suit. Defendant Conrado Bunag, Sr. was absolved from any and all liability.

Private respondent appealed that portion of the lower court's decision disculpating Conrado Bunag, Sr.
from civil liability in this case. On the other hand, the Bunags, as defendants-appellants, assigned in their
appeal several errors allegedly committed by trial court, which were summarized by respondent court as
follows: (1) in finding that defendant-appellant Conrado Bunag, Jr. forcibly abducted and raped plaintiff-
appellant; (2) in finding that defendants-appellants promised plaintiff-appellant that she would be wed to
defendant-appellant Conrado Bunag, Jr.; and (3) in awarding plaintiff-appellant damages for the breach of
defendants-appellants' promise of marriage.

As stated at the outset, on May 17, 1991 respondent Court of Appeals rendered judgment dismissing
both appeals and affirming in toto the decision of the trial court.

Bunag, Jr. first contends that both the trial and appellate courts failed to take into consideration the
alleged fact that he and private respondent had agreed to marry, and that there was no case of forcible
abduction with rape, but one of simple elopement and agreement to marry. It is averred that the
agreement to marry has been sufficiently proven by the testimonies of the witnesses for both parties and
the exhibits presented in court.

Petitioner likewise asserts that since action involves a breach of promise to marry, the trial court erred in
awarding damages.

It is true that breach of promise to marry has no standing in the civil law, apart from the right to recover
money or property advanced by the plaintiff upon the faith of such promise, therefore, a breach of
promise to marry per se is not actionable, except where the plaintiff has actually incurred expenses for
the wedding and the necessary incidents thereof.

However, the award of moral damages is allowed in cases specified in or analogous to those
provided in Article 2219 of the Civil Code. Correlatively, under Article 21 of said Code, in relation
to paragraph 10 of said Article 2219, any person who wilfully causes loss or injury to another in a
manner that is contrary to morals, good customs or public policy shall compensate the latter for
moral damages. 9 Article 21 was adopted to remedy the countless gaps in the statutes which
leave so many victims of moral wrongs helpless even though they have actually suffered material
and moral injury, and is intended to vouchsafe adequate legal remedy for that untold number of
moral wrongs which is impossible for human foresight to specifically provide for in the statutes.

Under the circumstances obtaining in the case at bar, the acts of petitioner in forcibly abducting private
respondent and having carnal knowledge with her against her will, and thereafter promising to marry her
in order to escape criminal liability, only to thereafter renege on such promise after cohabiting with her for
twenty-one days, irremissibly constitute acts contrary to morals and good customs.

Generally, the basis of civil liability from crime is the fundamental postulate of our law that every person
criminally liable for a felony is also civilly liable. In other words, criminal liability will give rise to civil liability
ex delicto only if the same felonious act or omission results in damage or injury to another and is the
direct and proximate cause thereof. Hence, extinction of the penal action does not carry with it the
extinction of civil liability unless the extinction proceeds from a declaration in a final judgment that the fact
from which the civil might arise did not exist.

WHEREFORE, the petition is hereby DENIED for lack of merit, and the assailed judgment and
resolution are hereby AFFIRMED.