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Public Advisory: LCCM and Certification

Posted on 28 Oct 2011 • Categorized as Announcements,Consular Advisories

The Department of Foreign Affairs received Memorandum Circular No. 2007-008 issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO) which establishes guidelines on the annotation of civil registry documents. The Memorandum Circular states that a foreign judgment or order requires judicial recognition by a Philippine court to prove its validity since these are not self-executory in the Philippines. The circular cited the Supreme Court ruling in the case of RP vs. Orbecido III (G.R. 154380, dated 5 October 2005) which states that “before a foreign divorce decree can be recognized by our own courts, the party pleading it must prove the divorce as a fact and demonstrate its conformity to the foreign law allowing it”.

The NSO guidelines cover the following foreign judgments/orders:

  1. Divorce by a Filipino national and a foreign national;
  2. Dissolution of Marriage;
  3. Adoption, except inter-country adoption that passed through the Inter-country Adoption Board (ICAB); and
  4. Other judgments/orders involving civil status of persons.

In effect, the circular would require all divorced Filipinos applying for Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage (LCCM) to submit annotated Marriage Contracts or Report of Marriage and judicial recognition of foreign divorce by a competent Philippine court.

In order to implement the new guidelines set by the National Statistics Office, the Department of Foreign Affairs has instructed the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo and the Philippine Consulate General in Osaka to issue the following documents related to marriage, effective immediately:

  1. Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage (LCCM). This document will be issued to Filipino nationals who are: a) single (with certificate of no marriage issued by the National Statistics Office); b) widowed (with death certificate of spouse); c) whose marriage are annulled by a competent Philippine court (with court order granting annulment and annotated marriage certificate issued by the National Statistics Office); and d) those who are divorced (with court order recognizing the foreign divorce and annotated marriage certificate or report of marriage issued by the National Statistics Office).
  2. Certification. This document will be issued only to divorced Filipino nationals who are unable to present a court order from a competent Philippine court which recognizes their foreign divorce and annotated marriage certificate or report of marriage issued by the National Statistics Office. However, this document will be issued only once and any subsequent application for Certification will not be accepted until the applicant is able to show an annotated marriage certificate or report or marriage and a court order issued by a Philippine court which recognizes the foreign divorce.

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