Dan and Judy

What no one has come out and said, is that there is no divorce in the Philippines.
If your wife was realy married before then you are not married.
there are two countries in the world where there is no divorce and the Philippines is one of them.
The reason is the strong catholic influence. You are not married and cant get married to her.
The one obscure exception I have found is if her husband is muslim he can divorce her by saying I divorce you
three times. This exception was made to placate the muslim terrorist/ freedom fighters who dont think they
should be controled by the goverment in manila. A muslim woman can not divorce her husband in this fashion so dont bother converting her.
I went through this 20 years ago. If you look on the Filipino Kisses website about 30% of the women say they are
divorced. they are not there is no divorce in the Philippines.
since you are in this deep already; If you are lucky she married an old man when she was young. which would mean
there is a good chance he was already married to someone else before he married her and therefore their marriage is null and void. It would also increase
the chance that he has since died, meaning that she was free to marry.
You can not take her to another country to get divorced. the US will not "recognize it". they will go with the philippine law which would not recognize it. there are annulments in the Philippines generaly reserved for the rich and famous. You can probably pay a few thousand dollars and get an anaulment. There are misc grounds for anaulment like the marriage was not consumated. But more than likely she dosnt fall under any of the grounds available so you would have to pay the big money and tell a big fib. there is an excellent chance your "wife" was perfectly aware of this and with a desperation born of poverty was willing to shoot for it.
dont bother with a fiance visa she dosnt have capacity to marry.
to sum up, If she was married to a muslim man he can divorce her.
Other than that prove that her first marriage was void because the husband had a prior marriage.
or take a chance on trying to "buy" an annulment. Im not sure if you already filed or not.
If you have not filed yet you might get the idea to just not mention the marriage but the Philippines has a national marriage registry which means it would be fairly easy for the consulate to find her prior marriage even if you managed to get a certificate of no prior marriage. also if she had kids with the prIor husband that would be all over
their birth certificates. to really sum it up "YOU'VE BEEN HAD" I went to three different lawyers in the states including at least one who had offices in the Philippines, they all said you are not married and cant get married. Dan

How come all you guys are so easy going? I am very frustrated about the length of time they have been taking on my visa. Well, over 140 days, is just making me itchy all over. Not even a request for further evidence. June 15 is the date of the first notice, not a thing since.
thanks, just needed to vent.
Jim