The Philippines is a jurisdiction that does not allow married couples to divorce. Divorces between Filipinos and foreigners spawned absurd situations wherein after the divorce, the Filipino spouses were still considered to be married to their foreigner spouses even though the foreigner spouse already moved on to marry someone else. Recognizing this problem, the Philippines carved out an exception to the rule on divorce and enacted Article 26 of the Family Code. This rule allowed Filipinos divorced from their foreigner spouses to remarry. For a long time, however, the Supreme Court distinguished between those Filipinos who were divorced by their spouses and those who initiated the divorce proceedings abroad. It ruled that Filipinos who initiated the divorce proceedings cannot benefit from Article 26 and remarry, while those who did not initiate the proceedings can.
Realizing, however, that our own law put the Filipino spouses at a disadvantage, the Supreme Court overruled itself and decided that all Filipinos married to foreigners whose jurisdictions allow the type of divorce that frees the foreigner spouses to remarry, may now remarry under Philippine law. In light of this, Filipino spouses can now remarry regardless of whether or not she/he who initiated the divorce proceedings. This new rule also benefits those Filipinos married to former Filipinos who subsequently obtained foreign citizenship. In these latter situations, the reckoning point “is not the citizenship of the parties at the time of the celebration of the marriage, but their citizenship at the time a valid divorce [was] obtained by the alien spouse capacitating the [him or her] to remarry.”[1]
With the advent of these rulings, several divorced Filipinos remarried under the assumption that the privilege granted by Philippine law to remarry is instant. Unfortunately, this is not the case: The “Filipino spouse who likewise benefits from the effects of the divorce cannot automatically remarry. Before the divorced Filipino spouse can [do so], he or she must [first] file a petition for judicial recognition of the foreign divorce.”[2]
There is a need for court action because Philippine courts do not take judicial notice of foreign judgments and laws. Likewise, entries in a civil register showing the fact of marriage of between the Filipino and the foreigner spouse cannot simply be cancelled or corrected upon merely presenting the divorce decree to the civil register because Article 412 of the Civil Code of the Philippines does not allow any changes in a civil register without judicial order. If the divorced Filipino remarries without petitioning the court to recognize his/her divorce abroad and cancel the marriage registration in the civil register, the civil registry will reflect that he/she has two subsisting marriages. To remedy this problem, the foreign judgment of the divorce and its authenticity must first be proven as facts in Philippine courts using the rules on evidence, in conjunction with the foreign spouse’s national law to show the effects of the divorce judgment on the foreign spouse himself or herself. Then, the Filipino spouse can be accorded the same benefits/effects and the entry in the civil registry can consequently be cancelled or corrected.
The recognition of the divorce decree may be made in an action instituted specifically for the purpose of recognizing the divorce decree abroad and cancelling or correcting entries in the civil registry; It may also be done in “another action where a party invokes the foreign decree as an integral aspect of his claim or defense.”[3] Generally, the recognition of the foreign divorce decree and the cancellation of the entry of marriage may both be obtained through a Rule 108 proceeding since this type of proceeding is used to establish the status or right of a party or a particular fact. “This proceeding may also serve as the appropriate adversarial proceeding by which the applicability of the foreign judgment can be measured and tested in terms of judicial infirmities, want of notice to the party, collusion, fraud, or clear mistake of law or fact.”[4]
So, if you’re a Filipino divorcee who wants to give love another try, start your marriage with a blank slate – at least in the eyes of the Philippine law – and embark on your next marital journey confident that you’ve got no legal hitches.
[1] Republic v. Orbecido III, 509 Phil. 109 (2005).
[2] Republic v. Cote, G.R. No. 212860, March 14, 2018.
[3] Republic v. Cote, G.R. No. 212860, March 14, 2018.
[4] Corpuz v. Sto. Tomas, et. al., 642 Phil. 420, 432-433 (2010).