Fujiki v. Marinay (2013): Recognizing a Foreign Judgment on Marriage

Minoru Fujiki, a Japanese citizen, married Maria Paz Marinay, a Filipino, in the Philippines in January 2004. His parents did not accept the marriage, so he could not bring her to Japan, where he lived. They lost contact.

In 2008 Marinay met another Japanese man, Shinichi Maekara. Without her first marriage being dissolved, she married Maekara in Quezon City in May 2008. He brought her to Japan. She later left him, saying he had abused her, and got back in touch with Fujiki.

In 2010, with Fujiki's help, Marinay obtained a judgment from a family court in Japan declaring her marriage to Maekara void on the ground of bigamy. In January 2011, Fujiki filed a petition in the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City for judicial recognition of that Japanese judgment. He asked the court to recognize the judgment, to declare the second marriage void, and to order the civil registrar of Quezon City to annotate the judgment on the marriage certificate of Marinay and Maekara and send the annotation to the National Statistics Office.

A few days after the filing, the trial court dismissed the petition on its own. It applied A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC, the Supreme Court rule on declaring marriages void and annulling voidable marriages. That rule says only the husband or the wife may file a petition to declare a marriage void, and the trial court saw Fujiki as a third person to the second marriage. It also cited the rule on venue. Fujiki went directly to the Supreme Court on a pure question of law. The Solicitor General agreed with him.

Three questions were decided. Does A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC apply to a petition to recognize a foreign judgment? Can the spouse of a prior marriage file a petition to recognize a foreign judgment that voided the bigamous later marriage? Can the court recognize the foreign judgment in a Rule 108 proceeding to correct the civil registry?

The Supreme Court granted the petition. It reversed and set aside the trial court's orders and told the trial court to reinstate Fujiki's petition for further proceedings.

• A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC does not apply. The Court held that the rule does not apply to a petition to recognize a foreign judgment on the status of a marriage where one of the parties is a foreign citizen. Applying it would mean trying the whole case again, which defeats the purpose of recognizing foreign judgments.
• Proof of the judgment as a fact. The petitioner only needs to prove the foreign judgment as a fact under the Rules of Court. Under the rules as they stood in 2013, this meant an official publication, or a copy attested by the officer who keeps it. For a judgment kept abroad, the certificate may come from a Philippine diplomatic or consular officer in that country.
• Limited review. Philippine courts do not look again at the merits of the foreign case. They check whether the judgment goes against Philippine public policy, and whether it can be set aside for want of jurisdiction, want of notice, collusion, fraud, or clear mistake of law or fact. Here, voiding a bigamous marriage agrees with Philippine law, because Article 35(4) of the Family Code makes bigamous marriages void from the beginning.
• Rule 108 is the right proceeding. Recognition may be made in a petition under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court to cancel or correct entries in the civil registry, filed by any person interested in the entry.
• The first spouse may file. The Court read the words "the husband or the wife" in that rule as meaning the husband or wife of the subsisting marriage. Parties to a bigamous marriage are not husband and wife under the law. Fujiki had a personal interest in his own marriage and its property relations, so he could sue.
• No shortcut to end a marriage. The Court warned that a petition to correct the civil registry cannot replace a direct court case to declare a marriage void. In its words, "a Filipino citizen cannot dissolve his marriage by the mere expedient of changing his entry of marriage in the civil registry." Recognition of a foreign judgment is different, because the case was already tried and decided abroad.
• Bigamy remains a crime. Recognizing the foreign judgment does not stop a prosecution for bigamy under Article 349 of the Revised Penal Code.

The Court also explained the link with the second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code. That article lets the Filipino spouse remarry after a valid divorce abroad leaves the foreign spouse free to remarry. The Court said the same principle applies when a foreign judgment voids a marriage between a Filipino and a foreign citizen on the ground of bigamy: without recognition, the foreign spouse could remarry while the Filipino could not.

A foreign judgment on the status of a marriage involving a foreign citizen is recognized in the Philippines by proving the judgment as a fact, and this may be done in a Rule 108 proceeding to correct the civil registry; A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC does not apply, and the spouse of the prior subsisting marriage may file to recognize a foreign judgment voiding a bigamous later marriage.

Many Filipinos marry foreigners or live abroad, and their marriages are sometimes ended or voided by foreign courts. Fujiki confirms that such a judgment has no automatic effect on Philippine records. A Philippine court must recognize it first, and then the civil registry entry can be annotated or cancelled. The decision relies on two earlier divorce cases, Republic v. Orbecido and Corpuz v. Sto. Tomas. See also is a foreign divorce valid in the Philippines.

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