Recap
My girlfriend in the Philippines was once married. Her husband cheated on her, abandoned her, left the country, and last time he saw her, he beat the crap out of her and put her in the hospital. He has an outstanding arrest warrant for this assault and cannot return to the Philippines without being arrested.
My girl’s pastor has said that her marriage is death (no kidding) and that she is free to marry someone else. Besides the adultery, abandonment, and physical abuse, he is also not a believer in Christ. In this paragraph, I have just listed four biblical reasons that my girl has for divorcing her husband; however, the Philippines is one of only two countries on the planet where divorce is illegal. I have blogged a little bit about this previously.
Update
Last night, a new wrinkle can to light. Out of frustration, I finally sent a message to Mario the attorney. Mario has been retained to get my girl an annulment. Mario was hired in September (approximately six months ago) to get this annulment done. While her marriage is and has been over for many years, the US government does not recognize the authority of the church and wants a declaration from the Philippine government that my girl is free to marry me. Said document is mandatory to begin immigration paperwork to legally enter the United States.
In essence, Mario is unwilling to file paperwork with the court for the annulment because he doesn’t have a witness for the husband’s side to prove that the guy is a dirtbag. Of course it is stated in more formal language.
I encountered difficulty in substantiating the allegations for the petition since we need to prove the circumstances that manifest psychological incapacity of the respondent considering that most of their married life was spent in a long distance relationship, case law provides that there should be witnesses that observed their marital relationship and their testimony should demonstrate juridical antecedence, gravity, and incurability of the psychological incapacity of the respondent.
Mario has been at a dead stop for two months. He has done zero that we are aware of since getting the final report from the psychologist on December 9th. My girl provided three witnesses for her side. The husband is from another part of the country. His family cut off the wife (my girl) years ago. They will not cooperate in this legal proceeding. They want her to suffer and be trapped in this sham marriage until the day she dies.
Options
When I read this message, I was incredulous. What a screwed-up system. The Philippines claims to be a Christian country but rejects all biblical grounds for ending a marriage via divorce. Sorry, Roman Catholics but there is no such thing as annulment in the Bible. Divorce is the only means of ending a marriage. Yes, it should be with cause and not a no-fault system but still…
Mario has a psychologist report saying that my girl should have an annulment and has cause, the photos and police report for the assault, the arrest warrant, three witnesses plus my girl, and if he wants it, a TikTok video of the husband with another woman dated a year prior to the year my girl went to South Korea to attempt to reconcile her marriage. But he doesn’t have enough to file the case. WTF bro.
Let’s face it. Mario is out of his depth. Mario, what happened to going to war with the army (or evidence) that you have?
“You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time” Donald Rumsfeld.
Our options are three:
- 1 Pressure Mario to file the case anyway and take our changes
- 2 Hire a new lawyer to pick up the case and take it to trial
- 3 Pivot and go the Sharia Law route
Frankly, Sharia Law is looking like the best option. Using Sharia, I have it on good authority that her marriage can be legally ended in 90-days via this path. The normal route via a trial (trial is mandatory and out-of-court settlements are illegal) will take much longer; think six to nine months. At this point, a private attorney or Sharia will likely have similar costs going forward.
Right now, it looks like Mario will get the Apprentice treatment, “You’re fired” in the next few days. Oh, if that happens, I want some of my money refunded.