LEGAL REQUIREMENTS for MARRIAGE
THE CENOMAR: -
This an acronym for Certificate of No Marriage and is basically a certification by the National Statistics Office stating that the person applying is not currently married - either the person has never married or their previous marriage has been annulled. I means you will not be entering into a bigamous marriage. They can be obtained in person from the NSO in Cebu or elsewhere in the Philippines, or online at www.e-census.com.ph . We went to our local Municipal Hall, paid 240 pesos and got our Cenomar one week later - very easy. The following information is needed to obtain a CENOMAR:
1. Complete name of the person to be certified
2. Complete name of the father
3. Complete maiden name of the mother
4. Date of birth
5. Place of birth
6. Complete name and address of the requesting party
7. Number or copies needed
8. Purpose for the certification
For the Filipina
- I have read that the Cenomar is not a requirement for marriage and
that
it is only essential if you want to be certain that the civil status of
the person you are marrying is still single and that he or she is
unattached. However we really weren't given the choice; we were told by
the Civil Registrar that we had to have one. for us getting a Cenomar
for Elsa was stated as a requirement for obtaining a Marriage License
For the Alien Partner -
For us, a Cenomar for me, the "alien" partner, was not required
although I have heard of some cases where it was. This could just be
one of the many inconsistencies in the application of the law here or
it could be a case of "better safe than sorry".
THE CERTIFICATE of NO IMPEDIMENT (CNI): -
This is sometimes also called a Legal Capacity to Marry. As an Australian Citizen I will quote from their website - I am sure that the basic information is the same whatever citizenship you hold.
"NOTE:
Philippine law requires the CNI to be issued by the Embassy of
the applicant's country of nationality in the Philippines. Documents
issued in Australia or other countries are not acceptable to the
Philippine authorities. The Certificate of No Impediment (CNI)
to Marriage, is not a requirement of Australian law. This is issued at
the request of overseas countries seeking to ensure that a marriage
involving Australian citizens, celebrated in that country, will also be
recognized as a valid marriage by the Australian authorities".
I
flew to Manila as there is no Consular Office in Cebu and got my CNI
within 1 hour for about 3,500 pesos. friends of mine who are UK
citizens got their CNI from the local Cebu consular office for around
4,400 pesos. To the best of my knowledge, if you have non-Filipino
citizenship, you cannot get married in the Philippines without a CNI.
THE MARRIAGE LICENSE: -
We
obtained our marriage from the local Civil Registrar in Consolacion and
he was one of the nicest, most helpful civil servants I have ever met
in any country; but I have had some clients who have been subjected to
what amounts to "verbal abuse" for their decision to get married to a
younger Filipina. Maybe they were unlucky or maybe it is part of a
"psychological test" to check if your intentions stand up to a bit of
scrutiny - remember getting angry with a civil servant will not result
in any speedier resolution to your problem - respect and humility are
the tools with which to grease the wheels.
If you're both getting married for the first time, the Civil Registrar
will ask to
see your original birth certificates or your baptismal certificates and
you will need to know the full name, address and citizenship of both
your parents. You will also need the Cenomar, the CNI and possibly
proof of attendance at the Family Planning and Marriage Guidance
Seminars, details of which are included on this page. If you have been
previously married, you will need to provide the death
certificate of your deceased spouse or the judicial decree of your
absolute divorce, or the judicial decree of your annulment or
declaration of nullity of your previous marriage.
If
you are under the age of 18, you can't get married in the Philippines
even if your parents agree with the marriage and if you are between the
age of 18 and 21 you will need the written consent of your parents.
Applicants between the age of 21 and 25, must ask their parents
or guardian for advice upon the intended marriage and, in our case, my
wife's mother was required to come with us to confirm to the Civil
Registrar that she had given such advice. If you do not obtain such
advice or if the parents advice is unfavorable, you will need to wait 3
months for issuance of the license instead of the normal 10 day waiting
period while notice of the
marriage application is posted on a bulletin board outside the local
Civil Registrar's office. We paid our 500 pesos and got our license, as
promised 10 days after we applied. We then took the license to our
celebrant so that the marriage contract could be drawn up.
THE FAMILY PLANNING SEMINAR: -
A Certificate of Attendance at a Family Planning Seminar conducted by the Division of Maternal and Child Health at the Municipal/City Hall in the same municipality or city where the contracting parties applied for the marriage license is also required.
In our case, we attended a very basic one
hour seminar conducted by some very nervous 4th year nursing students
from Cebu Doctors University and were issued our Certificate of
Attendance free of charge. However I have heard of other people who
had to attend a seminar from 8am until 5pm and were charged 1,000 pesos
- which is right? I don't know.
MARRIAGE GUIDANCE COUNSELING: -
If either of you are between the ages of 18 and 25, you will need to
show proof to the local civil registrar that you have received marriage
counseling. If you do not receive marriage counseling, your marriage
license will not be issued for three months.
Elsa
and I went to the Marriage Guidance Counselor at the Municipal Hall in
Consolacion and collected a multiple choice questionnaire for each of
us which we had to take home and complete after discussing the issues
raised between us. The questions were fairly basic and were designed to
test each person's attitude to their own and their partner's
responsibilities within marriage. I you believe in keeping your wife
tied to the cooker and available to meet you every whim, you might not
pass, but if you know the meaning of S.N.A.G. then the test is fairly
easy. The next day we went back the the counselor for a meeting to
discuss our expectations and 30 minutes later had our acknowledgment of
attendance which cost us nothing.
FINDING THE CELEBRANT: -
Marriage in the Philippines may be solemnized by any of the following:-
Civil Celebrants - the law states that marriage may be legalized by "any incumbent member of the judiciary within the courts' jurisdiction". For most people this will be a judge although I know of people who have been married by the local Mayor - mayors are not mentioned in the Act, so the mayor was either a judge as well or Mayors are considered to be included in the definition above. Costs for the use of judges seem to vary from case to case and of the 3 people I know who were recently married by judges, one told me they paid 8,000 pesos, one said 5,000 pesos and the last said 500pesos. We didn't use a civil celebrant so this information is merely hearsay.
Religious Celebrants
- In our case, as Elsa is a Baptist we used the pastor at the church
she attends. He had no problem with my previous marriage but did want
to know that I was a Christian and insisted that I was baptized in the
baptist faith. There was no set cost for his services but a "love gift"
of cash was expected. Again the law sates that you can be married by "any
priest, rabbi, imam, or minister of any church or religious sect duly
authorized by his church or religious sect and registered with the
Civil Registrar General , acting within the limits of the written
authority granted by his church or religious sect and provided that at
least one of the contracting parties belongs to the solemnizing
officer's church or religious sect ". So there are many choices
of religious celebrant to be found, but in many cases friends of mine
have not been able to find a Catholic Priest who will marry them
because of their previous marriage and divorce.
Other Options
- most of the alternative celebrants are pretty much "long shots" and
require special circumstances in which they can marry you, but the law
states that you can be married by a "ship captain or airline chief", a
"military commander" and a "consul-general, consul or vice-consul"
THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT:-
Once you have received the marriage license you need to take it to the celebrant so that they can prepare the marriage contract that you will sign during the ceremony. They will basically transfer the information from the marriage license to the marriage contract, leaving spaces for the signatures of the Bride and Groom, the Celebrant and the Witnesses (primary sponsors).
We learned one important lesson the hard way - make sure that the typing of the Marriage Contract is perfect.
If at some time in the future you need an NSO certified copy of the
Marriage Contract, (e.g. for a 13a Visa), they will not accept any
erasures, strike throughs, type overs, white outs, etc. - if in doubt
get it typed out again, it will save you a lot of running around in the
future.
THE VENUE FOR THE CEREMONY:-
Under Philippine law a marriage "shall
be solemnized publicly in the chambers of the judge, in the church,
chapel, or temple, or in the office of the consul general
..............................and not
elsewhere.......................or where both parties request the
solemnizing officer in writing in which case the marriage may be
solemnized at a house or place designated by them in a sworn statement
to that effect." So if you want to hold the ceremony away from
the church or judges chambers, perhaps in a garden setting at a resort,
as we did, you will need to present a notarized letter of request to
the celebrant. Most celebrants will be aware of this and can give you
a template of the wording required in the request.
THE WEDDING INVITATIONS:-
The
wedding invitations are a vital, yet often almost forgotten, piece of
the wedding jigsaw puzzle. If you don't get them out early enough,
those special people, particularly from overseas, won't have time to
make their arrangements to attend. Once you have your wedding license,
a date, a Celebrant and the venues for the ceremony and the reception,
you should make getting the invitations posted out your number one
priority - all of the other things came be organized later. We
initially looked at using a specialist invitation company to do our
invitations and there is plenty of choice out there starting around
t70php for each card. However we decided we wanted something a bit more
personal and decided to make our own. We bought nice, coloured card,
ribbon and motifs and, using our home computer and printer, tailored
each card specifically for the guest involved. It was a lot of work
for us both but we enjoyed working on it together and the cost per card
for us was under 20php!!
