Definition and Concept:
Recognition of divorce in the Philippines can be defined as a court process to make effective in the Philippines a divorce between a Filipino and a foreign spouse allowing both spouses to remarry. This is done under the authority of Article 26 of the Family Code, which states to wit:
“Where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and a foreigner is validly celebrated and a divorce is thereafter validly obtained abroad by the alien Spouse capacitating him or her to remarry, the Filipino Spouse shall have capacity to remarry under Philippine law.”
While the law states that the divorce must be obtained by the foreign spouse, the Supreme Court of the Philippines in the case of Republic vs. Manalo (G.R. No. 221029, April 24, 2018 ) has interpreted this to include a situation where the divorce was obtained by the Filipino spouse. The court noted that it would be unfair if a recognition of divorce would be allowed only to the foreign spouse. It is worthwhile to discuss this case in more detail to illustrate how a Petition for Recognition of Divorce works .
In this case Marelyn Manalo, a Filipina, was married to a Japanese national. She obtained a divorce in Japan which she sought to be recognized in the Philippines and to cancel her previous marriage which was recorded with the Civil Registrar of San Juan. The Court denied her petition on the ground that since the Philippines does not allow for divorce that the court could not recognize the divorce that she obtained in Japan. The Supreme Court of the Philippines disagreed, saying:
Paragraph 2 of Article 26 speaks of “a divorce x x x validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating him or her to remarry. ” Based on a clear and plain reading of the provision, it only requires that there be a divorce validly obtained abroad. The letter of the law does not demand that the alien spouse should be the one who initiated the proceeding wherein the divorce decree was granted. It does not distinguish whether the Filipino spouse is the petitioner or the respondent in the foreign divorce proceeding. The Court is bound by the words of the statute; neither can We put words in the mouths of the lawmakers.[37] “The legislature is presumed to know the meaning of the words, to have used words advisedly, and to have expressed its intent by the use of such words as are found in the statute. Verba legis non est recedendum, or from the words of a statute there should be no departure.”[38]
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the word “obtained” should be interpreted to mean that the divorce proceeding must be actually initiated by the alien spouse, still, the Court will not follow the letter of the statute when to do so would depart from the true intent of the legislature or would otherwise yield conclusions inconsistent with the general purpose of the act.[39] Laws have ends to achieve, and statutes should be so construed as not to defeat but to carry out such ends and purposes.[40] As held in League of Cities of the Phils., et al. v. COMELEC, et al.:[41]
The legislative intent is not at all times accurately reflected in the manner in which the resulting law is couched. Thus, applying a verba legis or strictly literal interpretation of a statute may render it meaningless and lead to inconvenience, an absurd situation or injustice. To obviate this aberration, and bearing in mind the principle that the intent or the spirit of the law is the law itself, resort should be to the rule that the spirit of the law controls its letter.
To reiterate, the purpose of Paragraph 2 of Article 26 is to avoid the absurd situation where the Filipino spouse remains married to the alien spouse who, after a foreign divorce decree that is effective in the country where it was rendered, is no longer married to the Filipino spouse. The provision is a corrective measure to address an anomaly where the Filipino spouse is tied to the marriage while the foreign spouse is free to marry under the laws of his or her country.[42] Whether the Filipino spouse initiated the foreign divorce proceeding or not, a favorable decree dissolving the marriage bond and capacitating his or her alien spouse to remarry will have the same result: the Filipino spouse will effectively be without a husband or wife. A Filipino who initiated a foreign divorce proceeding is in the same place and in “like circumstance as a Filipino who is at the receiving end of an alien initiated proceeding. Therefore, the subject provision should not make a distinction. In both instance, it is extended as a means to recognize the residual effect of the foreign divorce decree on Filipinos whose marital ties to their alien spouses are severed by operation of the latter’s national law.
