Annulment with Wife in philippines. Please advice.

From what I’ve read getting an annulment would only be granted in cases of fraud and a few other unscrupulous things that doesn’t seem to come into play if you were married for 17 years.
If you are a foreigner, divorce her in your home Country. Supposedly, foreign divorces are now recognized in the Philippines.

Hello,


I finish the annulment of the marriage of my future wife here in the Philippines. It took us 18 months.
She was married to an Australian citizen and even with proof of evidence that this man was bad (cheating, violence, no financial aid, etc), the annulment was very difficult.
That man from Australia send his ex-wife a divorce paper but this was useless because not recognised in the Philippines. A recognition of divorce is very long and the end is not sure. But the good news is that the authorities here are changing and put new articles in the Family Laws that are in favor of a more easy annulment (for example, after 4 years of no living together, the judge can decider of an annulment)

The only way is to have a filipino lawyer that will help you with all the process. Here in Cagayan, the cost was about 40k pesos but in Manila, it can be much more.

The way the lawyer find was very clever, the "presume death" of the husband ! The judge asks questions to a witness that knows the couple, and to my future spouse. After a publication of a article for 15 days in a public journal, asking where this man was and please enter contact with authorities, and after a checking with the visa instance, he was declared "presumed dead" and the jugement was done.

A waiting of 3 months is necessary for the procedure (appeal possible) and another 3 months for the registering in the PSA (NSO before).

I wish you good luck.

Alain_Phils