Is a legal separation in the Philippines enough to obtain a fiancée visa for the UK?

[ginapeterb]

Halfluke,

My collegaues Yves and Keith have given you very good advice, you should refrain from trying to circumvent the laws of our country, as an Italian citizen, you are resident in the UK, which you are entitled to work and reside, however you are not entitled to get around the laws of the UK, since many of us on this forum have had to patiently wait to obtain the required visa's for our wives, we take exception to those who would seek to get around our countries immigration laws, without doing things properly.

Your Girlfriend is a Filipino citizen, she may not obtain divorce anywhere in the world from her husband, the only action she may take is to file for a legal anulment if her case warrants it, however that is a matter for the Philippine Supreme court, and not for this forum to consider.

As you are someone presently settled in the United Kingdom you would need to apply for entry clearance visa for your GF at the British Embassy, until your GF has a legal anulment granted 6 to 18 months, then you can take no further action.

I can only concur with my colleague Yves in Republic of France, and Keith here in UK, Im sure Rob our colleague in Wales will no doubt concur, I trust you will do the right thing.

Thank you for coming to the forum.

Pete

[halfluke]

Thank you very much.

I don't want and I'm not going to trick the laws.
As I said, she will probably file for an annulment (and I'll pay )
I asked you about the Guam thing because I've found a couple of website talking about that.

I can post their links here.
If i'm not allowed, please feel free to remove them.

Luca

http://www.nevadadivorce.net/Philippines_divorce.html
(scroll down the page and you find more or less what the Filipino Family Code says)

http://public.findlaw.com/mboards/we...@.ef1469e/2094
it is a reply to case similar to mine, and it states that a divorce obtained abroad would let her remarry anywhere except in RP.
But the visa and the bigamy problem wouldn't be solved, that's why I think we are going for the long and safe side.

By the way: what happens is the annulment is refused? Have you ever heard about cases of refused annulments? I guess that that would be the final end of any dream...

[A_flyer]

Both sites are more relative to US (I mean a US person wants to marry a Filipino citizen). Laws are very different there than in Europe (for example there is no unique database for marriage in the US so it's very difficult to know if a US citizen is really single). In Europe, most countries have a database recording marriages/divorce/birth/deaths, so do the Philippines.

The first site is speaking of divorce in the Philippines, but it explain the annulment in reality which is not the same.

Regarding the Philippines laws, here are the extracts:

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), 3637 and 38. (17a)
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. (As amended by Executive Order 227)

Only a divorce originated by the foreigner spouse will be recognize by the Philippines.

For the annulment, you have first to refer to the Family code of the Philippines where you have all the grounds to start an annulment procedure:
Read it from here: http://www.chanrobles.com/executiveorderno209.htm
Title I, Chapter 3, article 35 to 50

To file an annulment, you go to court. So it's like other cases at court... long, costly and without 100% warranty of success.
Get a good lawyer there (don't hire one abroad, only one in the area of the court where the annulment have to be filed).

Good luck!