Acquiring a Marriage License in Baguio 2017

Hi there!

My husband and I just recently got married last July 2017 and with him living abroad and shouldering the wedding costs, my part was to do the paperwork here in Baguio and figure out how to acquire documents needed for us to get married.

I decided to write a post on this as a public service to couples who are required to secure their marriage licenses here in Baguio (most especially to couples who are in long distance relationships) since, based on my personal experience, I was clueless and had no idea where to start. Google-ing it didn't help and so I had to contact several friends who got married earlier this year who were kind enough to guide us. 

So without further ado, here it goes. 

Before you can get married, you are required to secure a marriage license from the Local Civil Registry Office (LCR). The marriage license will be valid for 120 days from the date of release, so timing is everything. 

The documents we submitted in acquiring a marriage license are:

1. Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) issued birth certificates (his and mine)

2. PSA issued certificate of no marriage (his and mine)

- Though a lot of people find it more convenient to (a) request these online and have it delivered to their houses OR (b) request it at SM and claim it a few days later (both at additional costs), I actually preferred to set a whole day to personally request these at PSA and be able to secure them on the same day. The only drawback is that it can really eat up a lot of your time unless you commit to waking up early and be there before 8am. PSA is located on the building across Heritage Mansion. It shares the same building with PRC. First you have to get your queue number and fill up the forms depending on the document you need. You will not be allowed to go up and enter yet (unless you are pregnant, disabled, senior citizen OR have other concerns OR you wish to ask/inquire at their customer service, then just inform the security guard) You have to wait until your number flashes on the screen they have placed outside. If done in the morning, the waiting time is a bit reasonable, but around noon or after lunch, the wait can be VERY long. My first visit was right around 1pm and believe it or not, I was able to go to and from La Trinidad (to do other errands) and still had time to spare upon returning. (Yes, it can take THAT long). Once you do get inside, do not be discouraged, because it is then that you will find out that they are still not yet serving your number, and that again, you will have to wait. It can't be helped, though. There really are a LOT of people in need of their service. A lot of patience and understanding is needed when you do transactions in PSA. 

So anyway, I got my documents without any problem but since my husband was still my fiance at that time, I was not authorized to secure his documents for him. Also, he was not in Baguio. I was required to present an authorization letter and his valid ID, which of course, I didn't have. It was a dilemma for me since, I won't be able to have a hard copy of his valid ID and the letter with his actual signature on it since he is in Canada and snail-mailing it just seems impractical. It's a good thing that PSA Baguio has a 'customer service' unit of some sort called Counseling On Civil Registration Matters (CARE) and they told me that he can just send a scanned copy of the authorization letter (with his signature) along with a scanned copy of his Valid ID which also bears the same signature to the email address written on the paper I posted above (the one with green asterisk at the bottom of the paper). I was a bit confused as to how it will work, but we followed it anyway. That night, he sent the documents to the email address given by PSA and still unsure, I went to PSA the next day, proceeding directly to CARE. I told the woman in charge at that time that I want to get a copy of my fiance's birth certificate and cenomar and told her that my fiance has already sent the scanned copies of his authorization letter and valid ID to their email. She checked her computer and to my relief, she found the files and signed and printed them for me. I then followed the normal procedure and when it was my turn, I simply showed the cashier the printed documents that CARE had given me earlier and proceeded to pay. After a few minutes, I was able to secure his documents. For your guidance, birth certicates cost P140.00 and cenomars are P195.00.

3. Community Tax Certificate/Cedula (mine)
- The LCR requires both to present their cedulas but I only secured mine. My husband is a Filipino but he is already a Canadian citizen, so there's no need for him to get one (he can't, anyway). If you and your partner are both Filipino, then you're both required to secure this. I went to the Baguio City Hall and it was not as crowded as I thought it would be (or maybe because it was already around 4 pm when I went). You will be required to show your payslip so they could compute your tax, but I forgot mine and I simply [and honestly, mind you, :)] declared my monthly income. From there, they computed the amount I had to pay and I was able to get my cedula.

4. Photocopies of Valid IDs (his and mine)
- We used our passports.

5. Seminar on Family Planning and Responsible Parenthood (one certificate to be issued for both)
- It is held at the Baguio Health Center and they have two schedules to choose from: Tues 1-4pm and Thurs 8-11am. It is absolutely required at this point that BOTH of you be present in this seminar. That is their rule and believe me, they will really check (as some couples have gone on this seminar with 'proxies'/having someone pretend to be their partner). We opted for the Thurs sched and were advised to go there early because we were told they only accommodate up to 20 couples per session, I think. So as early as 7:30 we were already outside the Health Center, waiting for it to open. Before proceeding to the seminar hall, we first had to pay P20.00 at the cashier (for the certificate). The seminar hall was big, however, and we think it can definitely accommodate more than 20 couples, I think they just say it so that couples will be discouraged from coming late (which didn't work because a lot of couples arrived late and were still allowed to take the seminar). I suggest that you already have your cenomars by this time because we were already asked to show them upon registration. The seminar was a bit long and had no breaks. There were different speakers and afterwards, the certificates were handed out.

6. Tree Planting Certificate (one certificate to be issued for both)
- I went to the City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO) in City Hall to complete this requirement. There are also two schedules here to choose from since it would be most efficient for them to do this by batches: Mon 9:30-10:30am and Wed 9:30-10:30am. Unlike the Seminar at the Health Center, the CEPMO does not require that both parties be present to do the tree planting. I really had to make this clear with the person in charge because I didn't want this to be a cause of problem later on, but she confirmed that I can do it in behalf of my fiance. She even suggested that I can have my mother accompany me, so I won't have to do it alone. It was very good news for me since I could finish as much requirements as possible before my fiance arrived. I first secured an order of payment from the CEPMO office, paid the corresponding fee (P50) at the Treasury Office and then went back to CEPMO to present the receipt and await instructions. I've heard couples before us had to buy their own pine tree seedlings at the orchidarium before going to the office, but the CEPMO told us they will provide the seedling and we'll just pay them. (For your guidance: pine tree seedling from CEPMO: P25.00 vs pine tree seedling from orchidarium: P100.00) It was a good thing I didn't buy the seedling before going to CEPMO. When they've accumulated around 10 couples, they instructed us to go Lion's Park and that's where we planted our seedlings. It was a bit sad for me since I was the only participant who didn't have a partner. It was the men who did the 'dirty work' (so men, be prepared to use a shovel and get your hands dirty), and of course I had to plant mine alone. However I was able to get help from some of the men who felt bad for me, I guess. (This has become a joke between me and my husband, as we would always refer to this as the time I planted a tree with other women's partners. LOL). Certificates were issued afterwards.

*Additional Requirement if partner is foreigner
7. Statutory Declaration
- Like I mentioned earlier, since my husband is Filipino by blood but is a Canadian citizen, he falls under the 'foreigner' category. Instead of a community tax certificate/cedula, he was required to present a Statutory declaration which he was able to secure at the Canadian Embassy in Manila. It only took him a short while. He went there around 9 in the morning and was done before 11am. (For American citizens, they present a 'Legal Capacity to marry" instead of a statutory declaration.)

For those of you who were wondering about which one I secured first, what worked for me was this: I first secured the birth certificates/cenomar at PSA and since City Hall was near, I went ahead and got my cedula while waiting for the release of the certificates at PSA. The tree planting certificate was the next requirement I secured at CEPMO, and voila, all requirements I could finish on my end were done. A few weeks later, when my fiance arrived, we proceeded directly to the Canadian embassy to secure the Statutory Declaration and upon arriving in Baguio, we attended the Seminar (at the Health Center, the one that requires both parties to be present) in the morning. We decide to file for our marriage license right away, since the Health Center was just beside the LCR. We had to prepare 2 photocopies of each document we had, signed the forms and was able to file for our license right around noon. (What a blessing it is indeed that government offices have no noon breaks!) We paid P120.00 (I think? I'll have to confirm this with my husband) and were told that the marriage license will be released after 10 days. It was July 13 (Thursday) when we filed and as promised, it was released on *July 24 (Monday).

(*The 10th day from July 13 is on July 23, to be technically correct, but since it was a Sunday, it was released the following day)

For those of you wondering, since the wedding is a church wedding, we were also required to complete the Pre-Marriage Counseling by our church (Victory Christian Fellowship). (For Catholics, they refer to this as Pre-Cana.) However, we completed this after filing the marriage license already. We were scheduled to do the counseling in our church at a much later time, and so I was worried that we might not be able to make it in time for our target wedding date, if we had to wait for it before filing the marriage license. The LCR included this in their list of requirements but thankfully, when I asked them about it, they said we can already file even without it, since all the other legal documents were complete and that the church counseling certificates were requirements specifically by the church and not them.

As of August 2017, these are the requirements and procedure in acquiring a marriage license here in Baguio based on our experience.

That's it! :) If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask on the comment sections below.