Generally, divorce obtained abroad shall not affect the validity of marraige. Such divorce decree, as far as the Philippine law is concern is void it being against public policy. As provided under Article 15 of the New Civil Code, Philippine laws on family rights and duties, status, condition and legal capacity shall govern Filipinos even though living abroad. That being the case, even if a Filipino is out of the country the laws of the Philippines would still apply to him, as regards his family rights and duties, status, conditions and legal capacity. Since Divorce involves status, family rights and duties but not, however, recognized under Philippine jurisdiction, such would be void and shall have no legal effect.
However, 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 have capacity to remarry under Philippine law. In this case, it should be the FOREIGN SPOUSE who shall obtain the divorce abroad and NOT the FILIPINO SPOUSE, so that the divorce decree will be recognized under the Philippine law. After the foreign spouse secure the divorce decree from abroad with a provisions with it that such foreign spouse may re-marry, then the filipino spouse, would also be allowed to re-marry.
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