What the new divorce ruling means for foreigners who were married to Filipino citizens
The Philippine Supreme Court has made it easier for a Filipino spouse to get a foreign divorce recognized in Philippine courts. It's a change to the rules on evidence and procedure, not a change to who qualifies.
Note that this is not a national divorce law. Right now, domestic divorce is only allowed for Muslim Filipinos.
What it means for a foreigner who divorced a Filipina
Your divorce was always valid. Nothing here changes your status abroad. The rule is about her capacity to remarry under Philippine law and about getting the divorce annotated on her PSA records.
It mostly matters to her. Before, the recognition case could stall or be dismissed because the petitioner couldn't properly prove the foreign law. That was the biggest obstacle, and it's now much lighter. It's the same obstacle the Supreme Court pointed out in earlier cases, where it sent the case back to receive evidence on Japanese divorce law.
If you're the ex-spouse, expect that the case may be easier for her to win. You can still oppose it, but the burden is on you to overturn the presumption with certified foreign law.
Limited divorces and legal separations don't qualify. If the decree says it's limited, the presumption doesn't hold.
Nothing is automatic. She still has to file in a Philippine court. The article says nothing about property, support or custody, so I wouldn't assume those are affected.
For K-1 and CR-1 cases
If a Filipina who was married to a foreigner now wants to marry your client, or your client's fiancée has a previous foreign spouse, cleaning things up on the Philippine side will be easier. A recognized divorce and an annotated PSA marriage certificate give her capacity to marry in the Philippines. For USCIS, the question is still whether the previous marriage legally ended where the divorce was obtained, so keep documenting the decree itself. I'm not a lawyer, so confirm the details of the Philippine court process with a Philippine lawyer.
It's definitely easier and faster now for Filipino citizens who divorced abroad to change their status to single in the Philippines and remarry. A Filipino citizen needs - the final divorce decree from the local court where it was granted. It has to be an absolute divorce - a VitalChek divorce document as an additional document, which can be ordered online - the marriage registration document in the Philippines - a petition for judicial recognition of foreign divorce - an affidavit - a special power of attorney - a lawyer's acceptance fee of 100k–150k pesos - other miscellaneous expenses of 50k–100k pesos
Okay, so what was this ruling, and when was it? I just paid the first half to get this process started, so if something recently changed, that would be great to know.
In the West it also started with small changes like these to marriage laws. In a few years, when no-fault divorce becomes law in the Philippines too, you'd better pray they don't apply it retroactively like most Western countries did. Otherwise a lot of foreigners and expats here are going to get cleaned out...
What about a US citizen who married a Filipina in the US and then had it registered in the Philippines? They divorced in the US, and now the American wants to marry in the Philippines, but his CENOMAR shows he's still married in the Philippines…
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