GUIDE TO JUDICIAL RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN DIVORCE

Every day, I get dozens of inquiries on ending a marriage. Some ask me about annulment. Some
think legal separation is better. And still others ask me about a case called Recognition of Foreign
Divorce.
The Philippines does not have divorce. But, in certain cases, the Philippines recognizes a divorce
obtained abroad.
Can your foreign divorce be recognized in the Philippines?
So, should you now go off to the US to end your Filipino marriage?
Well, not exactly.
A foreign divorce can only be recognized if one of the spouses was a foreigner at the time of the
divorce. In all other situations, a foreign divorce cannot be recognized in the Philippines.
So, what happens when a Filipino divorce another Filipino abroad? Let me give you an example.
Thirty-five years ago, two Filipinos divorced in California. The divorce was validly obtained there.
When the Filipina passed away, however, her Filipino husband remained a compulsory heir to
her Philippine properties because they were still married under Philippine law. The foreign
divorce was not recognized in the Philippines.
“Well,” you might say, “what about when a dual citizen divorces a Filipino?”
A dual citizen is a Filipino. No matter where he is, Philippine family law remains binding upon
him, which means foreign divorce would not be recognized here.
There is only one situation that is eligible for Recognition of Foreign Divorce. That is when at least
one of the spouses is a non-Filipino. There is no other situation that qualifies.
SC recognizes divorce in marriage with foreigners
What is a Recognition of Foreign Divorce case like?
Working in a law office, I’ve handled about a hundred cases on Recognition of Foreign Divorce.
These divorces come from wherever in the world Filipinos happen to be.
Many were from the United States, of course. I’ve worked on cases from California, Illinois, Texas,
New York, Mississippi, Hawaii, and Guam. There were also divorces in Canada, the United
Kingdom, Norway, Austria, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
and mainland China.
I know what a Recognition of Foreign Divorce case is and what it isn’t. And I have gently
comforted new clients who turned to us after having been scammed with fake PSA records, or
clients who have unaccomplished cases or had their cases dismissed.
I suspect that if more people knew what this case was like, fewer people would be taken
advantage of by the unscrupulous.
Let me go through some things you need to know when you file a case for Recognition of Foreign
Divorce. (And some of the stories I’ve come across).
Can I 'expedite' my Recognition of Foreign Divorce case?
No, you really can’t rush this.
Recognition of Foreign Divorce requires a court case in the Philippines. It follows steps like other
court cases in the Philippines. There is the gathering of documents, the drafting of pleadings, the
presentation of jurisdictional facts, the presentation of a witness, and then the decision.
The time you’d expect other court cases to take also applies to Recognition of Foreign Divorce,
heavily influenced by the fact that the Philippine court system is overburdened. You should
expect a case like this to take about a year and a half, from filing in court to getting a court
decision.
Yes, it can be done sooner if the court is efficient. But all this cannot be done in just three months.
I’ll never forget a client who first got in touch with me over email two years ago. She wanted a
fast Recognition of Foreign Divorce because she wanted to remarry, and the country she was in
required that her home country first recognize her divorce.
She wanted a quick case, so she paid someone to “expedite” her documents. That person came
back to her and gave her red ribboned court and PSA documents over a coffee table. But, when
she tried to use these for official transactions, she discovered the papers were fakes.
She tried again. She was still pressed for time and decided to “expedite” it again. So she paid
some fixer a “processing fee” – only to be presented with better fakes.
She finally called us. She accepted that the process would take at least a year. She asked us to
take the case and work on it (after first calling us, speaking to our head attorney, and sending
someone over to check if we really did exist. Couldn’t blame her – she’d been scammed twice.)
Where do I file my case?
“Do you mean to say I’m still married?”
“Yes,” I said, rather regretfully.
At that point, she was very upset. This new client had waited for three years. She had a fiancé
who had paid for the case to go through but was now quickly losing patience with the case (and
her).
But the case had to be filed again, because the case had been filed in the wrong court.
You must follow the rules for jurisdiction to be obtained. Otherwise, the case may be dismissed
or later refused registration by the PSA. You cannot file the court case in just any city. And unlike
other kinds of cases, it is not filed where you live.
Recognition of Foreign Divorce is a Rule 108 case under the Rules of Court. Under Rule 108, it
must be filed where the marriage was recorded. If you were married in Boracay, then the case
must be filed in Aklan. If you were married in Pasig, the case must be filed in Pasig.
This should be strictly followed, so that you avoid problems such as the Solicitor General posing
an objection, or the case being dismissed, or the PSA eventually refusing to register a court
decision.
What proof do I have to submit?
The foreign divorce decree, duly authenticated abroad, has to be submitted to the Philippine
court. The foreign law on divorce also has to be proven in Recognition of Foreign Divorce cases.
Our office has a full discussion about these requirements every time a new case comes in.Foreign
documents have to be authenticated for the court here to accept them. The relevant rule is
Section 24, Rule 132 of our Rules of Court. I’ll quote part of it here:
“The record of public documents...when admissible for any purpose, may be evidenced by an
official publication thereof or by a copy attested by the officer having the legal custody of the
record, or by his or her deputy, and accompanied, if the record is not kept in the Philippines, with
a certificate that such officer has the custody.”
It goes on, but let me highlight a few things.
The written, official acts of a sovereign authority – such as a foreign divorce or a foreign divorce
law – are proved through an “official publication” or “a copy attested by an officer having legal
custody of the record.”
But what is an “official publication?" Or who is the officer having legal custody of the record?
These are different for each country so it is an exercise in private international law every time.
A lady who had been married in Rizal contacted us to ask why her case was dismissed. She said
she wanted to fight for her rights dahil validly divorced naman ako.
Our lawyers looked at her documents and saw why. I told her that even if she had been validly
divorced, she needed to prove that to the judge. But her photocopy of California laws just did not
suffice for Section 24. As far as the court was concerned, the foreign law she submitted could
have been made up. It had not been shown to be an official publication nor was it authenticated,
and so it wasn’t accepted by the court.
I admit that it can be a challenge to prove the foreign law to a Philippine court. Since governments
are organized differently, the officer who has legal custody of a record differs from country to
country. The official custodian might be the Ministry of Justice, the Secretary of State, or the
Courts. It could be the Legislature or the Queen’s Printer. It is different per country.
Recognition cases often require us to research the structure of the foreign government. We then
coordinate with that foreign office to secure an official publication or an authenticated copy
accompanied with proof of his authority. It takes quite a bit of work.
In some cases, we’ve also had to prove parts of the foreign rules of court. Some judges also asked
us to show where in the foreign law it says that the divorced spouses are free to remarry for them
to extend this to freedom to the Filipino. Other cases even obliged us to look into which version
of the law was in effect when the divorce took place because there had been several
amendments to the foreign law since then.
If you’re going through a case like this, the evidence has to be carefully gathered according to the
rules and jurisprudence. The lawyers have to look at them carefully to avoid risk to the case.
I’ve gone through what you should expect in a case like Recognition of Foreign Divorce in this
first part of the series. In the second part, I’ll continue to elaborate on three other points and
then wrap it all up in a summary.
If you’ve read the first part of this two-part series on Recognition of Foreign Divorce, you’ll have
understood:
The situations that are eligible for Recognition of Foreign Divorce
The timeline involved
Where you should file
The proof you have to submit
I’ll continue below by adding three major points.
Can I just register my foreign divorce at a Philippine embassy?
This is not possible. You cannot just divorce abroad and register that divorce at the Philippine
embassy to give it effect in the Philippines. Recognition requires a court case. A divorced Filipino
spouse must obtain this judicial recognition of the foreign divorce in order to remarry.
This requirement can follow a Filipino wherever he or she goes. For example, a Filipino who would
marry abroad usually has to present the government of that country with a “Certificate of Legal
Capacity to Contract Marriage” from the Philippine embassy there.
Some Philippine embassies used to issue these certificates to Filipinos who had divorced
foreigners even before they obtained judicial recognition of their divorce. This allowed them to
marry abroad. It was for this reason that, for a while, divorced Filipinos in Japan could effectively
remarry there even without going through recognition of divorce in the Philippines.
This is no longer so.
After a line of Supreme Court decisions on the need for recognition, the Department of Foreign
Affairs now requires proof that the foreign divorce was recognized by a Philippine court before a
certificate of legal capacity to contract marriage is issued to a divorced Filipino.
Similarly, in a 2010 decision, the Supreme Court told local civil registrars to stop registering
foreign divorce decrees which lacked recognition from a Philippine court.
In Corpus vs. Tirol, the Court ruled that the Pasig City Civil Registry Office acted totally out of turn
and without authority when it annotated a Philippine marriage certificate to reflect a Canadian
divorce without a court order here. This means that if you want to register your foreign divorce
in the Philippine civil registry to change your marital status, you need a lawyer to file a case.
There have been proposals to turn the recognition process from a court process into
administrative one, but these have not prospered. It requires an amendment to the law,
specifically the Civil Code, and any bill touching on divorce remains controversial here.
One version of the bill is also problematic in that it proposes to turn over responsibility for
determining the authenticity of the foreign documents – the divorce decree and the foreign law
– to the local civil registrars. This is troublesome considering how arcane the exercise of proving
a foreign law can be. Taking that responsibility from a Regional Trial Court and placing it on a
local civil registrar’s office seems inappropriate.
How can I tell who a real lawyer is?
It was odd, but it happened too often that some people would entrust their case to someone else
who was supposed to transact with an unseen lawyer on their behalf. That middleman would
supposedly negotiate on their behalf, give the documents to the alleged lawyer, and then take
care of minding the case for them.
Such an arrangement is very irregular. It should have been a warning to them that some fraud
was afoot.
Real lawyers actually interact with their clients. It doesn’t matter if they are overseas. I’ve
watched my boss email, call, or text the client directly, because he might need to confirm this or
that. He does this to check that they have the facts straight and make sure that he is working
with a real client. He might first be contacted by a friend or a relative, but he does at least touch
base with his clients to verify certain things.
Communication with your lawyer is also needed since the applicant for recognition actually has
to personally sign certain documents for submission to the court. If she is abroad, she may have
to do this at the Philippine consulate and send these notarized documents to her lawyer’s office
in the Philippines. You should expect your lawyer to coordinate with you on these, too.
In one of the strangest cases turned over to the law firm, a lady had completely entrusted her
case to someone else. And that someone else had given it to someone else, and at the end of the
day, nothing had happened to her case.
Expect your lawyer to touch base with you. And if you have doubts about whether your lawyer is
a “real” lawyer, you can certainly check his roll number at the Supreme Court and whether he is
a member in good standing of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.
Why do I have to notify my former spouse?
About 75% percent of the work that I do as a paralegal is not seen by the client. This type of work
is low key, but it is essential to the success of a case and ensures that a favorable court decision
won’t be subject to challenge.
For example, I’ll compile a client’s case folder and list of documents. I’ll work on the publication
requirement. I’ll make sure that we’ve ensured all parties are sent court notices – and this
includes the client’s former spouse – because the Rules of Court require it.
Because a marriage may have ended bitterly, it is understandable if a client doesn’t want the ex-
husband/ex-wife notified of the recognition case, but it has to be done. This is a case involving
the marital status of the parties. The Supreme Court has called such cases actions in rem or quasi
in rem. Although the purpose of sending notice is not to give the trial court jurisdiction over the
person of the ex-spouse, notice should still be sent to fulfill due process.
So, there may be a period between filing the case and the first court hearing where the client
might not hear much from his lawyer. But let me tell you – your lawyer is probably really, really
busy working your case in that time.
He checks with the court to see if the case has been assigned to a branch and calendared. It is
not unusual to spend a few weeks trying to get this information from the courts. He’s also
checking to make sure your notice of the case is duly published once weekly for three weeks in a
newspaper of general circulation. This requirement alone takes up at least a month. For this, he
has to again coordinate with the courts to see if it has been raffled to an accredited newspaper.
He is also checking to see which other parties should be notified (it depends on the actual
situation) and then making sure he can prove that they’ve been sent notice.
All this takes considerable work. The work is necessary for the case to proceed smoothly, so the
Office of the Solicitor General doesn’t object at the end of the case and say that there was a
problem with due process.
How did this story make you feel?
In summary
People go through Recognition of Foreign Divorce to remarry, immigrate, clarify property
relations, and to revert to their maiden name on their passport.
Expect the following when you start this process:
Recognition of Foreign Divorce is a court case
You should talk directly to your lawyer
You’ll need to file at a specific court determined by the Rules of Court
There is a timeline of at least a year from filing to decision and there isn’t an “expedite” option
from a fixer or a scammer
Notice needs to be sent to interested parties (including your former spouse)
The divorce decree and the foreign law need to be proved as per the Rules of Court or
jurisprudence and they cannot be just a photocopy
So, talk to whomever you engage for this case. Engage a lawyer whom you feel you can work with
and who has sufficient experience.
This is a court case and so it cannot be “expedited,” nor should you expect that you can get
someone from inside the PSA to magically make your record disappear. It’s important not to fall
for a con. Watch out for the hallmarks of a con – fast, hands-off, hassle free processing – because
if it is too good to be true, it usually is.