MEDINA v.
KIOKE
G.R. 215723, July 27, 2016
FACTS:
1. Petitioner Doreen Penilla (Filipino) married
Michiyuki Kioke (Japanese) on June 14, 2005 in
Quezon City. They had two children.
2. On June 12, 2012, Penilla and Kioke filed for
divorce before the Mayor of Ichinomiya City,
Japan. A divorce certificate was issued and such
was duly recorded in the Official Family Register
of Michiyuki.
3. Penilla wanted to annotate the divorce in her
Certificate of Marriage thus she filed for judicial
recognition of foreign divorce and declaration of
capacity to remarry pursuant to Art. 26 before the
RTC.
4. Penilla presented the divorce certificate, the
record in the Official Family Register and two
books entitled The Civil Code of Japan 2000
and The Civil Code of Japan 2009.
5. RTC denied the petition stating that the foreign law
was not duly proven since the two Civil Codes of
Japan was not authenticated by the Philippine
Consul in Japan. There was also no qualified
expert presented to testify on the foreign law.
ISSUE: W/N the RTC erred in denying petition for the
judicial recognition of divorce.
HELD: REMANDED. No showing of the foreign law basis
of the divorce, thus the case is remanded to the Court of
Appeals by discretion of the Supreme Court.
Art. 26 of the Family Code provides that:
o Art. 26. All marriages solemnized outside the
Philippines in accordance with the laws in force in
the country where they were solemnized, and valid
there as such, shall also be valid in this country,
except those prohibited under Articles 35(1), (4), (5)
and (6), 36, 37 and 38.
Where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and
a foreigner is validly celebrated and a divorce is
thereafter validly obtained abroad by the alien
spouse capacitating him or her to remarry, the
Filipino spouse shall likewise have capacity to
remarry under Philippine law.
The foreign divorce may be recognized in the
Philippines by fulfilling the following procedure: the
foreign judgment and its authenticity must be
proven as facts under our rules on evidence,
together with the alien's applicable national law to
 show the effect of the judgment on the alien
himself or herself.
Since the foreign law was not proven, the
Supreme Court remanded the case to the Court of
Appeals upon their discretion for the latter to try
the facts of the case and decide appropriately.