In Redante Sarto y Misalucha v. People (G.R. No. 206284, February 28, 2018), the Supreme Court affirmed a conviction for bigamy against a man who remarried in the Philippines after his first wife obtained a divorce in British Columbia. His only proof of that divorce was a registrar's Certificate of Divorce. The Court held that a certificate is not the decree, that it had not been certified by a Philippine consular officer stationed in Canada, and that no copy of Canadian divorce law was ever presented. A foreign divorce has no automatic effect here: until a Philippine court recognizes it, the first marriage subsists.
Most of what is written about foreign divorce concerns civil status — whether the Philippine records can be corrected, whether a person is free to marry again. Sarto v. People is the case that shows what happens when the question is asked in a criminal court instead, and asked too late. It is the reason this office does not treat a recognition petition as paperwork that can wait.
What happened
Mas komportable ka ba sa Tagalog? Basahin ang aming gabay: Paano I-recognize ang Foreign Divorce sa Pilipinas.
Redante Sarto and Maria Socorro G. Negrete were both natives of Buhi, Camarines Sur. They married on 31 August 1984 in Angono, Rizal. Maria Socorro later left for Canada to work as a nurse and acquired Canadian citizenship on 1 April 1988. She then filed for divorce in British Columbia, and the Supreme Court of British Columbia granted it effective 1 November 1988. She remarried in Chilliwack, British Columbia on 5 August 2000.
Believing his first marriage dissolved, Redante married Fe R. Aguila on 29 December 1998 in Naga City. In 2007, Fe charged him with bigamy. The Regional Trial Court of Naga City convicted him; the Court of Appeals affirmed on 31 July 2012 in CA-G.R. CR No. 32635; and the Supreme Court, through Justice Martires, denied his petition on 28 February 2018. He was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of two years, four months and one day of prisión correccional as minimum, to eight years and one day of prisión mayor as maximum.
One detail deserves to be stated plainly, because it measures how little discretion the rules leave: the Office of the Solicitor General filed a Manifestation advocating acquittal. The Court rejected it and affirmed the conviction anyway.
The document he relied on
The divorce was real. What the defense put in evidence to prove it was a single page — a Certificate of Divorce issued by the registrar of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on 14 January 2008. The decision reproduces it, and it is worth reading closely, because it is the same document Filipinos routinely bring home from Canada:
In the Supreme Court of British Columbia
Certificate of Divorce
This is to certify that Ma. Socorro Negrete SARTO and Redante M SARTO who were married at ANGONO, RIZAL, PHILIPPINES on August 31, 1984 were divorced under the Divorce Act (Canada) by an order of this Court which took effect and dissolved the marriage on November 1, 1988.
Given under my hand and the Seal of this Court January 14, 2008
(SGD.)
REGISTRAR
It is signed, sealed, issued by a court officer, and entirely accurate. It names the governing statute. It states the effective date of dissolution. To a non-lawyer it looks like the strongest possible proof. No order or judgment of the Canadian court was offered alongside it, no consular certification, and no copy of Canadian divorce law. Maria Socorro's Canadian citizenship certificate was lost while she was testifying, and surfaced later only as a photocopy attached to the appellant's brief.
Why the certificate failed
Because the divorce was raised as a defense, the burden of establishing it fell on the accused:
It is a fundamental principle in this jurisdiction that the burden of proof lies with the party who alleges the existence of a fact or thing necessary in the prosecution or defense of an action.
Since the divorce was a defense raised by Redante, it is incumbent upon him to show that it was validly obtained in accordance with Maria Socorro's country's national law.
Stated differently, Redante has the burden of proving the termination of the first marriage prior to the celebration of the second.
The Court then set out how a foreign divorce and the foreign law behind it must be proved:
In particular, to prove the divorce and the foreign law allowing it, the party invoking them must present copies thereof and comply with Sections 24 and 25, Rule 132 of the Revised Rules of Court.
Pursuant to these rules, the divorce decree and foreign law may be proven through (1) an official publication or (2) or copies thereof attested to by the officer having legal custody of said documents. If the office which has custody is in a foreign country, the copies of said documents must be (a) accompanied by a certificate issued by the proper diplomatic or consular officer in the Philippine foreign service stationed in the foreign country in which the record is kept; and (b) authenticated by the seal of his office.
Measured against that standard, the British Columbia certificate failed three times over. This is the passage to remember:
This certificate of divorce, however, is utterly insufficient to rebut the charge against Redante. First, the certificate of divorce is not the divorce decree required by the rules and jurisprudence. As discussed previously, the divorce decree required to prove the fact of divorce is the judgment itself as rendered by the foreign court and not a mere certification. Second, assuming the certificate of divorce may be considered as the divorce decree, it was not accompanied by a certification issued by the proper Philippine diplomatic or consular officer stationed in Canada, as required under Section 24 of Rule 132. Lastly, no copy of the alleged Canadian law was presented by the defense. Thus, it could not be reasonably determined whether the subject divorce decree was in accord with Maria Socorro's national law.
The third failure is the one people find hardest to accept. Philippine courts do not take judicial notice of foreign law, so without a copy of the Divorce Act (Canada) in evidence the Court could not tell what kind of divorce had been granted — "whether an absolute divorce which terminates the marriage or a limited divorce which merely suspends it" — or whether it left Maria Socorro free to marry again. The conclusion followed:
As such, Redante failed to prove his defense that he had the capacity to remarry when he contracted a subsequent marriage to Fe. His liability for bigamy is, therefore, now beyond question.
Nor did the missing citizenship certificate change anything:
Thus, even if the Court were to indulge the OSG and consider Maria Socorro's citizenship certificate, which was a mere photocopy and filed belatedly, it would not have any effect significant enough to produce a judgment of acquittal. The fact that Redante failed to prove the existence of the divorce and that it was validly acquired prior to the celebration of the second marriage still subsists.
The rule underneath: a foreign divorce is inert until recognized
Everything above rests on one proposition, which Sarto states and which the Court had settled eight years earlier in Gerbert R. Corpuz v. Daisylyn Tirol Sto. Tomas (G.R. No. 186571, August 11, 2010):
A divorce decree obtained abroad by an alien spouse is a foreign judgment relating to the status of a marriage. As in any other foreign judgment, a divorce decree does not have an automatic effect in the Philippines. Consequently, recognition by Philippine courts may be required before the effects of a divorce decree could be extended in this jurisdiction.
Recognition of the divorce decree, however, need not be obtained in a separate petition filed solely for that purpose. Philippine courts may recognize the foreign divorce decree when such was invoked by a party as an integral aspect of his claim or defense.
And on what recognition requires:
Before the divorce decree can be recognized by our courts, the party pleading it must prove it as a fact and demonstrate its conformity to the foreign law allowing it. Proving the foreign law under which the divorce was secured is mandatory considering that Philippine courts cannot and could not be expected to take judicial notice of foreign laws.
For the purpose of establishing divorce as a fact, a copy of the divorce decree itself must be presented and admitted in evidence. This is in consonance with the rule that a foreign judgment may be given presumptive evidentiary value only after it is presented and admitted in evidence.
Corpuz is the same story with a gentler ending. A former Filipino naturalized in Canada obtained a divorce from the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor, Ontario, and proved it with a Certificate of Divorce. The Supreme Court noted that the certificate showed only that the marriage had been dissolved — "The full text of the court's judgment was not included." — and that he had "failed to include a copy of the Canadian law on divorce." Instead of dismissing outright, the Court remanded, "to determine whether the divorce decree is consistent with the Canadian divorce law." The identical gap that sent Corpuz back to the trial court is the one that convicted Redante Sarto.
Corpuz also disposes of a shortcut people still attempt — having the local civil registrar annotate the foreign decree without going to court:
Thus, the Pasig City Civil Registry Office acted totally out of turn and without authority of law when it annotated the Canadian divorce decree on Gerbert and Daisylyn's marriage certificate, on the strength alone of the foreign decree presented by Gerbert.
Article 26 did not save him, and neither did her remarriage
Redante invoked the second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code, the provision that exists precisely so that a Filipino is not left married to a former spouse who is free abroad. The Court acknowledged the argument and the underlying reality, then explained why neither could carry him:
This Court is not unmindful of the second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code. Indeed, in Republic v. Orbecido, a case invoked by Redante to support his cause, the Court recognized that the legislative intent behind the said provision is to avoid the absurd situation where the Filipino spouse remains married to the alien spouse who, after obtaining a divorce, is no longer married to the Filipino spouse under the laws of his or her country.
The Court is also not oblivious of the fact that Maria Socorro had already remarried in Canada on 5 August 2000. These circumstances, however, can never justify the reversal of Redante's conviction.
Article 26 supplies the right. It does not supply the evidence. A divorce that is genuine, and a former spouse who has visibly moved on, still amount to nothing in a Philippine courtroom until the decree and the foreign law are proved in the form the rules demand.
What Sarto does not decide
It is easy to over-read this case, and over-reading it does real harm. Some limits worth being candid about:
- It is not a holding that Canadian divorces cannot be recognized here. The Court did not rule on the validity of Maria Socorro's divorce at all. It ruled that the documents offered did not prove one.
- It does not tell you what proof of Canadian law will suffice. No Supreme Court decision has yet received proof of the Divorce Act (Canada) and pronounced it adequate. Both Canadian cases stop at the absence of that proof, so there is no ruling on whether an official publication, a government printout, a registrar's certification, or an expert affidavit satisfies Rule 132.
- No Canadian divorce has been recognized on the merits in this line of cases. In the Supreme Court decisions retrieved for this commentary, exactly two involve a divorce obtained in Canada: Corpuz, which was remanded, and Sarto, which was denied. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Japanese line of cases in which the foreign law was successfully proved.
- It says nothing about apostilles. Neither Canadian case discusses apostillisation. Any advice about apostilled Canadian documents reasons from the general rule, not from Canadian case law.
- It is not the last word on doctrine. No Canadian case has been decided since 2018, so the later developments — on divorces initiated by the Filipino spouse, on divorces by mutual agreement, and on what must be pleaded as ultimate facts — are general jurisprudence, not Canadian authority.
- It decides nothing about property, custody, or support following a recognized foreign divorce. Those questions were not before the Court.
The sequence that avoids this
The order of steps is the whole lesson. It is not complicated, only unforgiving:
- Obtain the judgment itself, not a certificate. Ask the foreign court registry for the order or judgment granting the divorce, with the full text, attested by the officer having legal custody of it. The registry certificate may accompany it; it cannot replace it.
- Have it certified by the Philippine Embassy or Consulate in the country where the record is kept, authenticated by the seal of that office, as Rule 132, Section 24 requires.
- Obtain proof of the foreign divorce law in the same form, together with proof of the alien spouse's nationality at the time the divorce was obtained. This is the limb that lost both Canadian cases.
- File a petition for judicial recognition of the foreign divorce and see it through to a final decision.
- Have the decision annotated on the PSA marriage record. An annotation made by a civil registrar without a court order is void and changes nothing.
- Only then remarry. A PSA marriage certificate that still shows the first marriage as subsisting is what a prosecutor will hold up in court.
Our practice pages set out the mechanics: the recognition of foreign divorce guide covers the petition itself, the Canadian divorce hub deals with Canada specifically, and the page on the Canadian Certificate of Divorce explains what that document is and what has to be obtained in addition to it. The criminal exposure discussed here is not confined to Canada — the same analysis appears in our page on bigamy after a Japanese divorce.
Redante Sarto's first marriage had in fact ended in British Columbia in 1988. The Philippine record never said so, and by the time that mattered, the evidence needed to prove it was not in the case. If you are holding a foreign divorce document and thinking about remarrying, the sequence above is the difference between a civil proceeding and a criminal one.
This commentary is general legal information, not legal advice on your situation. Whether the reasoning in Sarto reaches your own facts is a question for counsel.