Maria Josephine Praxedes Octaviano v. Karl Heinz Ruthe and Lisa Grace S. Bernales, Civil Registrar General

 

Maria Josephine Praxedes Octaviano v. Karl Heinz Ruthe and Lisa Grace S. Bernales, Civil Registrar General

G.R. No. 218008

June 28, 2024

 

FACTS:

Petitioner Octaviano, a Filipino citizen, and respondent Ruthe, a German national, were married in Burg, Germany on August 13, 1990. They bore two children, Emmanual Ruthe and Miguel Ruthe, born on November 4, 1989 and August 20, 1991 respectively, in Burg, Germany. On June 9, 2006, petitioner sought the dissolution of her marriage with respondent before the District Court of Clark County, Nevada, USA which in turn, granted the same and the parties are restored to the status of a single and unmarried person. Petitioner then filed a petition for the judicial recognition of a foreign divorce decree before the RTC.

ISSUE:

                Whether or not a divorce decree obtained by a Filipino spouse married to a foreign national, can be judicially recognized in the Philippines.

HELD:

                Yes. The reckoning point is not the citizenship of the parties at the time of the celebration of the marriage, but their citizenship at the time a valid divorce is obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating the latter to remarry.

In Republic v. Manalo, the Court ruled that a Filipino spouse could initiate a foreign divorce proceeding that will capacitate him or her to remarry:  Paragraph 2 of Article 26 speaks of a divorce validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating him or her to remarry.  “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 statue; neither can We put words in the mouths of the lawmakers. “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.

                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 statue 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. Laws have ends to achieve, and statutes should be so construed as not to defeat but to carry out such ends and purposes.