Medina vs. Koike

Factual Background

The parties were married in Quezon City on June 14, 2005 and had two children. On June 14, 2012, the parties filed for and obtained a divorce under Japanese law before the Mayor of Ichinomiya City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, as shown in a Divorce Certificate and an entry in the Official Family Register of Michiyuki Koike. Petitioner sought annotation of the divorce on her Philippine Certificate of Marriage and a judicial declaration of capacity to remarry under the second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code. To that end, petitioner filed a petition in the RTC on February 7, 2013. At the RTC hearing no party opposed the petition.

Evidence Presented to the RTC

Petitioner submitted several foreign-authenticated materials. These included a "Certificate of Receiving/Certificate of Acceptance of Divorce" and a "Family Register of Michiyuki Koike" issued by the Mayor of Ichinomiya City and authenticated by the Consul of the Republic of the Philippines for Osaka, Japan; a certified machine copy of a "Divorce Certificate" issued by the Consul for the Ambassador of Japan in Manila and authenticated by the Department of Foreign Affairs; and a certification from the City Civil Registry Office in Manila that the original divorce certificate was filed and recorded in that office. Petitioner also offered photocopies of the Civil Code of Japan with English translation and two books entitled "The Civil Code of Japan 2000" and "The Civil Code of Japan 2009" to prove the existence and content of Japanese divorce law.

RTC Proceedings and Ruling

In a Decision dated July 31, 2014, the RTC denied the petition. The RTC held that recognition under Article 26 required proof, under Sections 24 and 25, Rule 132, both of the foreign divorce decree and of the alien spouse's national law that authorized the divorce. While the court found that the documentary divorce records were proven as public or official records of Japan, it concluded that petitioner failed to prove the governing national law of Michiyuki Koike, particularly the existence and operative effect of a Japanese law on divorce. The RTC noted that the Civil Code books were not authenticated by the Philippine Consul in Japan as required by the cited rules. The RTC further found petitioner’s testimony insufficient because she was not offered or qualified as an expert on Japanese family law. The RTC declined to admit the books as learned treatises under Section 46, Rule 130, because no expert witness testified to their authoritativeness and because Philippine courts do not take judicial notice of foreign judgments and foreign law. Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was denied in a Resolution dated November 28, 2014.

Issue Presented

The dispositive issue was whether the RTC erred in denying petitioner’s action for judicial recognition of the foreign divorce and declaration of capacity to remarry under the second paragraph of Article 26 of the Family Code.

Governing Legal Principles

The Court reiterated that Philippine law does not provide for absolute divorce and that recognition of a foreign divorce under Article 26 is confined to mixed marriages where an alien spouse validly obtained a divorce abroad which capacitated the alien to remarry, thereby conferring capacity to remarry upon the Filipino spouse. The Court affirmed the established rule that Philippine courts do not take judicial notice of foreign judgments and foreign law and that both the foreign decree and the alien’s national law must be pleaded and proven as facts under our rules of evidence. The Court cited authoritative precedents, including Corpuz v. Sto. Tomas, Garcia v. Recio, and Fujiki v. Marinay, to restate that proof of the foreign divorce decree and the governing national law of the alien are essential and that such matters are factual in nature.

Scope of Review and Procedural Constraints

The Court observed that the question whether the divorce decree and foreign law were established was essentially factual and required re-evaluation of evidence presented to the RTC. The Court therefore recognized that the instant case raised factual issues beyond the proper scope of a petition for certiorari under Rule 45, because the Supreme Court is not a trier of facts and defers to the fact-finding of lower courts. The Court explained that appeals raising factual or mixed questions ordinarily proceed to the Court of Appeals under Rule 41.

Discretion to Refer to the Court of Appeals

Noting the procedural strictures, the Court invoked the discretionary authority under Section 6, Rule 56 of the Rules of Court to refer an improperly filed certiorari appeal that submits issues of fact to the Court of Appeals for decision or appropriate action. The Court emphasized that the determination whether issues of fact are involved is final and that the exercise of discretion may be