Reacting from Article 26 par. 2 of the NCC.

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), 36, 37 and 38.  (Because of COMITY)

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 (Because of Equity).

The doctrine in Manalo, penned by Mr.Justice Peralta, holds that a Filipino spouse married to a
foreigner, may initiate divorce proceedings outside the Philippines where divorce is allowed then,
upon securing the divorce, go back to the PH and petition for the recognition of the foreign judgment
here.

But while jurisprudence, leading to the birth of Article 26 in 1988, speaks of the inequity of the situation
wherein the Filipino spouse remains married to the foreign spouse, who, by his national law, has been
divorced to the Filipino spouse and is allowed to marry, it does not speak of the other side of the action
of divorce, which is, not only for the former spouses to be allowed to remarry but, more importantly, to
be allowed to be severed from a decaying marriage bond.

If thru Article 26 par. 2 we can legally skirt the limitations of public policy in the PH by accepting the
imported judgment of divorce, it would be the height of injustice if we go strictly textual on paragraph 2
and only allow the foreign spouse to initiate it and leave the Filipino spouse, trapped in a problematic
union, without recourse but to wait for the foreign spouse to do the job.

Moreover, with respect to comity, what Philippine Law respects is the judgment of the competent court
abroad and hence, in strictly applying paragraph 2, totally veer away from that same amount of respect
by accepting the mere infirmity of the act of the Filipino spouse initiating divorce proceedings. In
other words, the merits of the judgment should be the main topic for consideration and application, and
not the procedural issue brought by par 2 of Article 26.