Each day we receive many enquiries about obtaining a divorce here in the Philippines. Some inquiries are from people who are simply curious and the inquiry does not progress beyond that point.
On the other hand many of the people that contact us send us their full contact details and often include a detailed personal account of the reasons they are seeking a divorce in the Philippines with a plea for us to help them.
But in the follow up correspondence they claim that divorce in the Philippines is impossible, and not legal, and some also suggest that we are being dishonest through offering divorce. A common comment is “everyone knows divorce is impossible in the Philippines”. Then in the same email they ask is it really true that they can get a divorce as they are desperate to be free of their marriage and apart from annulment we are their only hope!
When we say it is completely true they respond that their friend, brother, uncle or cousin told them that divorce is not possible and proceed to introduce an argument challenging us to produce proof that divorce is possible and 100% legal. Some even claim they consulted a lawyer and were advised that there is no divorce in the Philippines. I commented in another article “given that around 70% of the candidates who sit the lawyers bar examination, fail, it is not surprising that many lawyers are unaware of all the laws related to divorce”.
Some ask why we will not reveal details of the law which allows divorce and our reply is that it took us a huge amount of personal and professional research before we discovered a method to achieve a legal divorce. We consider the personal knowledge, court skills and ancillary contacts to be unique to us which has been achieved through our dedicated research efforts therefore we choose to claim it as our Intellectual Property (IP).
A prospective client is offered the opportunity to purchase our IP knowledge by paying for our Disclosure Document that sets out in detail the law under which we will Petition for Divorce. Should they decide not to proceed using our method then that is the end of our involvement and any personal documents we hold related to that person are deleted from our computer data bank and all hard copies destroyed though shredding.
Although others might decide to undertake the legal research and possibly reach the same conclusion that we did, actually applying that knowledge and preparing the Petition for the Court is precise work as minor mistakes (even spelling mistakes) can put the success of the case in jeopardy. Not only is it very time-consuming to prepare each Petition, we must include all of the facts necessary to achieve a successful result, so every Petition contains variations to reflect the client’s needs, such as custody of children or division of property.
We get some clients who have already commenced with an action to obtain an annulment in the Philippines and after waiting more than a year (and often much longer) they come to us.
Unfortunately, it is illegal for a person to have multiple annulment/divorce actions in a Court at the same time. The Petitioner must formally withdraw from the current Petition for Annulment and sign an affidavit stating that there is no other or pending Court action related to that matter. When that is done we can then accept that person as a client and pursue their case.
Typically within three weeks of receiving certain LCR and NSO documents we will have the Petition for Divorce completed and ready for filing and docketing in the court. The petitioners spouse will receive a summons from the court and a copy of the Petition within 15 days and has the opportunity to respond. Should the respondent choose not to reply then the judge will continue the case in that person’s absence and hand down a Court Order of Divorce. Again the respondent will have the opportunity to respond or contest the Decision and if not a Certificate of Finality will be issued.
Because of the difficulties that can be experienced having the various documents copied and stamped Certified True Copies and accepted in the LCR and NSO we offer the experience of a group who will handle all of this work for the client. So we really can offer a turnkey service and take a lot of the load off our clients. If you have an interest in checking out your own position it will cost you nothing – just fill in the initial details on www.divorceinthephilippines.com/contact-us and we will give you a free appraisal. What have you got to lose – other than an unwanted spouse?
