Divorce, Mr. Laverboi, and becoming a brown American
In most states, even non-US citizens are allowed to file for divorce, and this is where it gets tricky.
Out of the more than 200 countries and autonomous territories on earth, only two jurisdictional entities do not allow divorce. One is the Philippines (except for its Muslim inhabitants). The other is Vatican City.
Apparently, being a loyal acolyte of the Catholic Church when it comes to marriage inviolability is deeply embedded in every Filipino’s psyche. Padre Damaso and Capitan Tiago of Noli Me Tangere fame could attest to this.
In a practical sense, the closest thing to a Philippine version of divorce is the annulment of marriage based on psychological incapacity, which allows a party to end the marriage upon showing that the other party did not possess the required psychological or mental fitness to enter into a marital relationship in the first place.
This is not an easy thing to prove, and many an annulment case had been denied for lack of sufficient proof or due to the existence of a collusion between the parties — a prohibited circumstance.
In the US, divorce can be a “fault-based” or “no-fault-based” proceeding. In some states, however, fault-based grounds have totally been eliminated. In Maryland, for example, only no-fault grounds are available, such as a six-month separation, irreconcilable differences, and mutual consent, making it even easier to obtain a divorce.
Under the mutual consent grounds, a married couple who suddenly wake up to find his/her spouse as no longer as attractive as Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie can seek a dissolution of marriage based on a rather lame but valid excuse that they are no longer physically attracted to each other.
In most states, even non-US citizens are allowed to file for divorce, and this is where it gets tricky. For instance, a Filipino overstay in the US (“Mr. Laverboi”) finds a new flame who happens to be an American citizen. After much soul-searching, he decides to file for divorce from his wife in the Philippines.
Because Mr. Laverboi is still a Filipino citizen, his civil status remains within the ambit of Philippine law, and his divorce in the US, although recognized by Uncle Sam, is not considered valid in the Philippines.
Consequently, if he marries his new flame, he can be sued for bigamy under Philippine law for entering into a second marriage during the validity of his first marriage.
However, if Mr. Laverboi later becomes a US citizen (via his American spouse’s sponsorship), he will cease to be subject to the Philippines’ ultra-restrictive domestic relations law.
Under Philippine law, if a foreigner obtains a divorce from a Filipino spouse which capacitates the foreigner to remarry, the Filipino spouse is also freed from marital bondage and is given the right to remarry.
As a cautionary note, however, since Mr. Laverboi was still a Filipino citizen when he filed for divorce, the Philippine courts may not accept the divorce as valid for remarriage purposes.
Still, becoming a brown American would provide Mr. Laverboi ample protection against a potential bigamy charge.
As for the Filipino spouse, unless Mr. Laverboi re-files for divorce as an American citizen, or unless the Philippine courts recalibrate the underlying jurisprudence, the remarriage benefit would not necessarily flow as a matter of course — to the detriment of the jilted spouse.
Life isn’t fair, as the old truism goes.