We have one case wherein our client, a Boholana, met a US citizen and they got married in a civil wedding in Manila City Hall few years ago. They went to the US and two years later, the US husband obtained a divorce in Las Vegas, Nevada against our client who now wanted to re-marry her kababayan here in the Philippines. The case is quite simple considering that under the second paragraph of Art. 26 of the Family Law of the Philippines, 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 re-marry, the Filipino spouse shall likewise have capacity to re-marry under Philippine laws. But our problem now lies in our petition for the recognition of foreign judgment of the divorce decree issued by the court in Nevada. Our courts here do not take judicial notice of foreign judgments and laws. The court wanted us to prove the existence of divorce law in Nevada. Section 24, Rule 132 of the Rules of Court now comes into play.

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This section requires proof, either by (1) official publications or (2) copies attested by the officer having legal custody of the documents. If the copies of official records are not kept in the Philippines, these must be (a) accompanied by a certificate issued by the proper diplomatic or consular officer in the Philippine foreign service stationed in the foreign country in which the record is kept and (b) authenticated by the seal of his office. How do we prove the existence of the divorce law if it is only a state law in Nevada, USA? There is no official publication or a law book to be attested by the officer having legal custody of the divorce decree as required by the Rules of Court. It's because the divorce law in Nevada is not universal and thus, it cannot finalize one rule and print it in a book as its divorce law may differ with California and in all other states in the United States. The court wanted to invite any person from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) or the Philippine consulate stationed in the US to testify on the existence of the divorce law in Nevada. At any rate, our problem was solved as the notary public, a Filipino, who notarized the affidavit of our client in Nevada was here in the Philippines to testify on the matter.

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That case was quite expensive and very consuming. That is why we are very happy the Supreme Court has now acted to prepare ourselves for The Hague Apostille Convention, the ultimate solution to requirements of Section 24, Rule 132 of the Rules of Court in the Philippines. There was a seminar-workshop being held last month in Dela Salle, Manila on the Apostille Convention. Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno urged the members of the judiciary and the legal profession to prepare for the country's impending accession to The Hague Apostille Convention, the Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. Sereno underscored the importance of maintaining the security and integrity of its documents and so the judiciary, among others, has to review how to keep public records.

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The Hague Apostille Convention aims to abolish the often time-consuming and costly paper work surrounding the legalization of foreign public documents, and to replace it with a simple single procedure but without doing away with legalization. It is time- and cost-efficient, a one-stop-shop for authenticated foreign public documents. The seminar-workshop was in anticipation of the Philippines' accession to The Hague Apostille Convention. This was drawn up by the Hague Conference on Private International Law during its ninth session in 1960. What it establishes are certain formalities in international legal transactions, without the loss of legal certainty, by reducing the legalization process to a single action: the application of an apostille--which is a kind of certificate. A document bearing an apostle would then not require any further legalization by the embassy or consulate of the country in which it is to be used.

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POSTSCRIPT: We noticed last week that the white Mitsubishi Adventures used as police cars in the city are being driven by civilians. These police cars are owned by the city government of Tagbilaran. In the past, we also see police cars in the municipality also being driven by civilian employees. We saw one police car last week driven by a civilian passing by the riotous traffic in front of the Bohol Wisdom School at around 5 to 6pm sounding the siren of the police car every now and then in order to waylay other cars even if he is the only one on board. We don't know what the driver really wanted to show, that he is superior considering that his on a board a police car? We hope Mayor Baba Yap and Col. Atanacio will prevent civilians from driving these police cars…Since November last year when water supply stopped due to the brownouts, we noticed that our water bill decreased noticeably. We know that this does not sit well with the Bohol Water Utilities. Yesterday, Bohol Waters sent a team allegedly trying to test our water meters and eventually, replace it with a new one for P1,700 which will be charged to our water bills in the future. This is really, business as usual…There's more when we return.