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‘As long as the divorce is valid under the foreign spouse’s national law, it will be recognized in the Philippines for the Filipino spouse,’ the Supreme Court says
MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that the Philippines recognizes divorce obtained abroad, whether through legal or administrative process or by mutual agreement.
The decision penned by Associate Justice Japar Dimaampao said that foreign divorce is not required to undergo judicial proceedings to be recognized in the Philippines. In the ruling made public on Friday, September 20, the SC ruled in favor of Filipina Ruby Cuevas Ng, who married Japanese Akihiro Sono in Quezon City in 2004.
“The Court held that the type of divorce, whether administrative or judicial, did not matter. As long as the divorce is valid under the foreign spouse’s national law, it will be recognized in the Philippines for the Filipino spouse,” the High Court said.
The Philippines does not have its own divorce law, but the country recognizes divorce obtained in another country. Under article 26, paragraph 2 of the Family Code, Filipinos previously married to foreigners can ask Philippine courts to recognize their foreign divorce.
Relating to the case of Ng, the SC said the specific provision of the Family Code aims to prevent the situation where foreigners can remarry while their Filipino spouses are still bound by the marriage.
After their failed marriage, Ng and her Japanese husband secured a “divorce decree by mutual agreement” in Japan. The separation was acknowledged by a divorce certificate issued by the Japanese embassy in the Philippines.
For her divorce be acknowledged, Ng filed a petition with the Regional Trial Court (RTC). This was also to declare her capacity to remarry, as granted by the Family Code. The RTC granted Ng’s petition.
The Office of the Solicitor General challenged the RTC’s decision with the SC, arguing that only foreign divorce decrees issued by courts abroad can be recognized locally. But the SC sided with the Filipina petitioner.
However, Ng failed to submit to the RTC an authenticated copy of the Japanese law on the divorce. Revised Rules on Evidence rule 132, sections 24 and 25 state that public documents of other countries must be proven through official publication or copies attested by the legal custodian of the documents.
With this, the SC remanded the case back to the lower court to allow the Filipina to present evidence and prove the existence of Japanese laws on divorce.
The amended Family Code of the Philippines recognizes divorce obtained abroad. However, if the one who initiated the divorce was the Filipino spouse, the Philippines won’t recognize it because the absence of absolute divorce in the country.
This changed, however, after a landmark decision in 2018, where the High Court ruled that foreign divorce can be recognized in the Philippines even if the Filipino spouse was the one who filed the divorce.
Foreign divorce was the closest thing to divorce that Filipinos could avail themselves of as the Philippines remains the only country aside from the Vatican City to not have a local divorce law. There were attempts to pass such a law in the Philippines, and in fact, the House of Representatives had recently passed a bill allowing absolute divorce. This was only the second time, though, that the divorce bill hurdled the lower chamber.
During the 17th Congress, the House also approved an absolute divorce bill, but its Senate counterpart languished at the committee level. – Rappler.com
