RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN JUDGMENT

There is generally no divorce allowed the Philippines, but a marriage between a Filipino and a
foreigner is a special case. The Philippines will recognize the divorce of a Filipino obtained abroad by
the foreign spouse. However, in Republic v. Morales, G.R. No. 221029, April 24, 2018, even a
Filipino spouse can obtain a decree of divorce as an interpretation of paragraph 2, Article 26 of the
Family Code.

PROCESS

It is not a simple matter of presenting a copy of your foreign divorce decree to

a Philippine government office.

Recognition is a judicial process where both the foreign divorce and the foreign
divorce law need to be proven in Court. You will need to file a Petition for
Recognition of Foreign Divorce with the Regional Trial Court in the Philippines.
You will need to get a lawyer to prepare and conduct the case.

When you talk to a lawyer, you should disclose the whole picture to him,
providing honest and complete details about your ex-spouse, your
citizenships, your marriage and divorce.

Be honest when you talk to your lawyer. He will need to know the specific
places and dates of events. He will also need clear, accurate copies of your
marriage and divorce documents so that he can assess them himself. (Do not
edit the facts or be afraid to disclose everything to the lawyer you consult. He
needs to know these facts in order to do a good job. And a lawyer is bound to
confidentiality by his Code of Ethics.)

Don’t be embarrassed by whatever you need to tell your lawyer. Don’t

hesitate to ask him any questions you may have. In the meantime, you can
begin to put together some of the documents your lawyer will need to review
and which you’ll eventually have to submit to the Court.

DOCUMENTS NEEDED

Before the case will be filed in court, you need these documents:

1. Philippine marriage certificate/record if the marriage was in the country

2. Official marriage certificate/record from the foreign country if the
marriage was abroad
3. Report of Marriage of a Filipino married abroad (if one was filed with the
DFA)
4. Official copies of your foreign divorce documents
5. Certified copy of the foreign country’s divorce law
 6. Proofs of citizenship

Note that this is a general list.

Depending on the particular foreign country involved, and depending on the

particular case, there may be other documents necessary.

This is because different countries have different divorce processes and

different kinds of marriage and divorce documents.

These documents can be merely scanned copies when you first send them to
your lawyer.

The value of having these documents is firstly that they allow your counsel a
clear view of the circumstances. Reviewing them will also allow him to advise
you of what other documents you may need to get.

However, these documents will eventually have to be presented to the

Regional Trial Court with the Petition. For it to accept these documents, the
Court needs to be assured that they are genuine.

The Philippine documents will need to have been officially certified by the
correct government office (Civil Registrar/Philippines Statistics
Authority/Department of Foreign Affairs/etc.)

The foreign documents, on the other hand, will need to be certified by the
correct foreign office and they will need to be authenticated (Red Ribboned)
by the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Philippine embassy in the foreign
country. If a foreign document is not in English, then its certified English
translation is also needed and this also has to Getting your documents ready
is an important first step that it be authenticated by the DFA.

COURT PROCEDURE

After gathering the facts and the needed documents, the lawyer will draft the
Petition for Recognition of Foreign Divorce which needs to be signed by the
lawyer and sworn to by the petitioner.

This Petition will then be filed with the Regional Trial Court in the correct city or
province. Attached to the Petition will be copies of the relevant documents. If
the marriage was celebrated abroad and reported to an embassy or consular
office, it must be filed in the Regional Trial Court in the City of Manila.

The case will then be raffled to one of the RTC’s branches in that city or
province.
The RTC branch that gets the case will check whether the petitioner or her
lawyer have any family relation to the Court’s personnel, and take measures
to preserve impartiality.

Then the RTC will order that the substance of the Petition be published in a
random newspaper once a week for 3 weeks. The case will be calendared for
first hearing and notices of this will be served to the Philippine government
offices concerned, to the last known address of the ex-spouse, and to any
other required parties.

Proof that these notices were served needs to be shown on the first hearing
date. After that, the lawyer will have the documents of the case marked into
the record of the Court.

As you can see, this is a court process with extensive pre-hearing

requirements. The trial itself requires the presentation of witnesses and other
evidence, as well as written memoranda, before the Court will make a ruling.

The testimony of a witness will be through a judicial affidavit.

A judicial affidavit is used in order to speed up the trial.

In a judicial affidavit, the lawyer’s questions and the answers of the witness
are set into writing and notarized before the hearing. This way, no matter how
long the written testimony is, under her lawyer’s guidance the witness will
simply identify and affirm this judicial affidavit in Court in order to complete
her direct testimony.

She can then be cross-examined by the government lawyer to verify her

statements. On cross-examination, she will be asked follow up questions about
her marriage and divorce.

After all the evidence is submitted, the lawyer will submit to the RTC a legal
document known as a Formal Offer of Evidence and also a final Memorandum.
Absent active opposition by other parties, we will then await the Court’s
Decision. The waiting after these submissions would probably take a few
months because of the clogged court dockets.

Assuming it is favorable, the Decision can thereafter be registered with the

civil registrar and the Philippine Statistics Authority for annotation on the
marriage record.

IF THE PETITIONER IS ABROAD

That the petitioner is abroad while the case is being prepared can actually be
beneficial. If foreign documents need to be secured in the foreign country, it is
then often easiest for the petitioner to get them there herself.

Much of the remaining preparation can be done in remote coordination with

your lawyer over the internet.

Once trial begins, the petitioner should ideally come to testify on at least one
of the hearing dates. This hearing date can be scheduled well ahead of time to
account for travel and leave limitations.

However, if it is not possible for the petitioner to testify, she can appoint a
personal representative to appear on her behalf. The advisability of doing this
will depend on how well and completely the documents presented can prove
the facts of the case.

LENGTH OF THE CASE

The trial can take about a year to about a year and a half to finish from date of
filing.

Apart from the notice requirements (service of summons and publication), the
reason it can take so long is because of the heavy backlog of court cases.

Philippine courts tend to handle many, many cases at any given time. Even
though only a few hearing dates are needed in a Petition for Recognition of
Foreign Divorce, these are sometimes scheduled months apart because the
calendars of the courts are so crowded.

COSTS INVOLVED

A case for recognition of foreign divorce entails different costs.

There are the minimal fees to be paid to government offices for the certified
copies of documents. Then there are the fees charged by the Department of
Foreign Affairs or Philippine embassy for authenticating public documents.

When the Petition is filed, there is an initial filing fee collected by the Court.
There is also a requirement for the publication of the Petition in a small
newspaper chosen by the Court.

There are other expenses associated with the court proceedings, such as for
the court transcripts, photocopying, postage, and messengerial expenses.

A lawyer’s professional fees are dependent on several factors, among them

the difficulty of a particular case, the logistics involved, how much further
investigation and liaisioning with government offices are needed, and other
specific circumstances.
Professional fees are divided into the lawyer’s acceptance fee for the case, by
which he commits his time to study and analyze the facts, commits to
represent the client, and to prepare the Petition for Recognition, the
subsequent fees for the other written pleadings he must submit to the Court,
and court appearance fees for each hearing. These fees are agreed on during
the early consultations with the lawyer, after the circumstances of the case
are better known.