Short answer. You submit an affidavit instead. When a death certificate for a deceased spouse cannot be secured, the law lets the applicant execute an affidavit stating that circumstance, together with the applicant's actual civil status and the deceased spouse's name and date of death, in place of the certificate.
What the law says
In case the death certificate cannot be secured, the party shall make an affidavit setting forth this circumstance and his or her actual civil status and the name and date of death of the deceased spouse.
Family Code, Article 13 — Proof Required When a Party Was Previously Married. Read the full provision →
Why a death certificate is normally required
Anyone applying for a marriage license who was previously married must furnish proof that the earlier marriage has ended. For a widow or widower, that proof is ordinarily the death certificate of the deceased spouse, submitted in place of the birth or baptismal certificate an unmarried applicant would otherwise present. The certificate lets the civil registrar confirm, from an official record, that the applicant is free to marry again rather than taking the applicant's word for it.
When the certificate genuinely cannot be obtained
The law anticipates that a death certificate will not always exist or be retrievable — the death may have occurred abroad, gone unregistered, or the records may simply be lost. For that situation, the applicant may instead execute an affidavit setting out three things: the fact that the death certificate cannot be secured, the applicant's actual civil status, and the name and date of death of the deceased spouse. This affidavit substitutes for the certificate for purposes of the license application. The affidavit route is written into the same article that lists the acceptable judicial decrees for other previously married applicants — absolute divorce, annulment, or a declaration of nullity — so it is a recognized substitute, not an informal workaround.
What the affidavit needs to say
The affidavit is not a blank statement that a death occurred; it must set forth the specific circumstance that the certificate could not be obtained, plus the applicant's own current civil status and the identifying details of the deceased spouse's death. Leaving out any of those particulars means the affidavit does not do the job the provision requires of it, since the whole point is to give the civil registrar the same essential facts a death certificate would have supplied, just sworn to rather than officially recorded. And because the affidavit is a sworn statement, the applicant answers for its truth; it is a substitute for a missing record, not a shortcut around the facts.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Edelina T. Ando vs. Department of Foreign Affairs, G.R. No. 195432, August 27, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Grace J. Garcia, a.k.a. Grace J. Garcia-Recio, vs. Rederick A. Recio, G.R. No. 138322, October 2, 2001 — read the decision on LawPhil →