Recognition of Foreign Divorce in the Philippines

Divorce under Philippine law

The kind of divorce existing under Philippine law is known as a relative divorce. This is specifically the legal separation provided under Article 55 of the Family Code. A marriage bond is not severed it is merely a separation of the spouses from bed to board.

Effect of divorce to a Filipino spouse obtained by a foreign spouse

Second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code states that divorce validly obtained by the alien spouse capacitating him/her to remarry, the Filipino spouse shall likewise have capacity to remarry under Philippine law. However, a petition for recognition of that foreign divorce is still necessary. The local civil registrar will require the judgment involving recognition of that foreign divorce. According to the latest ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of Corpus vs. Sto. Tomas, decided in August 11,2010,  G.R. No. 186571,  the recognition of the foreign divorce decree may be made under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court (correction and cancellation of entry in the Certificate of Marriage) as the object of special proceedings is precisely to establish the status or right of a party or a particular fact. Moreover, Rule 108 of the Rules of Court can serve as the appropriate adversarial proceeding by which the applicability of the foreign judgment can be measured and tested in terms of jurisdictional infirmities, want of notice to the party, collusion, fraud, or clear mistake of law or fact. There is a  need for the said proceedings because the divorce decree cannot be automatically annotated on the Certificate of Marriage. In the petition for recognition of foreign divorce, the documents needed are the foreign law used as basis of the divorce and the decree of  divorce. Those documents (foreign law and divorce certificate) should  be duly certified by the officer of that foreign government having custody of the said documents and thereafter to be authenticated by the Philippine consulate abroad.   The foreign law is needed because the divorce decree has to be proved as valid.

Validity of divorce obtained by a Filipino after he/she was naturalized as a citizen of another country

The divorce is valid. According to the case of Republic vs. Orbecido (G.R. No. 155380, 05 October 2005), Article 26 would apply. In the said case, the Supreme Court interpreted second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code that “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 is obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating the latter to remarry.”

Comments are closed.