Should foreign divorce be recognized in PH? SC hears views
Recognizing foreign divorce under Philippine law will help resolve “limping marriages” or marital unions that are legitimate in one country but nullified in another.
This was among the views taken up by experts on family law and private international law as the Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday over a lower court ruling against a Filipino man who wanted his foreign divorce to be also recognized in the country.
The unnamed petitioner obtained his divorce from his wife, also a Filipino, in the United States in 2010. A green card holder at that time, he was granted US citizenship in 2019 but reacquired Filipino citizenship a year later, thus becoming a dual citizen.
The period between the petitioner’s divorce and his US citizenship is central to the issue of whether Philippine courts—in this case the Nueva Ecija trial court that ruled against the petitioner—may recognize divorce granted abroad, according to experts whom the Supreme Court invited as amici curiae, or “friends of the court.”
According to Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe, both spouses were Filipinos at the time they sought a divorce in the United States.
In asking the high court to dismiss the petitioner’s appeal, Berberabe also said the country’s Family Code has no provision that can support his case.
Berberabe, however, acknowledged that there has been a “considerable number” of petitions seeking to recognize foreign divorce.
The matter “needs immediate attention by our Congress to address the issues that are affecting our other Filipino members,” she added.
‘No hard and fast rule’
University of Philippines law professor Elizabeth Aguiling Pangalangan argued that limping marriages “can also be subject to judicial reinterpretation of existing laws.”
She noted that while such marriages “undermines the stability of civil statuses and family relations,” Philippine law still recognizes divorce such as in marital cases under the purview of the Code of Muslim Personal Laws.
“It is not a hard and fast rule anymore,” Pangalangan said.
McGvyer Doria, assistant dean of the Tañada-Diokno School of Law of the De La Salle University, said the “absence of [a] mechanism of absolute divorce here in this jurisdiction does not necessarily mean that there is a broad public policy against absolute divorce.”
Former Far Eastern University law dean Mel Sta. Maria said refusal to recognize foreign divorce, especially involving a spouse who later gains foreign citizenship, would be discriminatory.
He cited Article 26, Section 2 of the Family Code, which allows both spouses who are the subject of a divorce to remarry but only if one of them is a foreigner, as well as “our policy today on disallowing recognition.”
‘Xenocentric policy’
“Our policy today, Your Honor, I’m sorry to say, borders on racism. [It is] xenocentric and it mirrors a colonial mentality where the natives have less rights. And if they want to have more rights, they have to associate themselves with a foreigner,” Sta. Maria said.
Oral arguments on recognizing foreign divorce will resume on July 14.
