The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that the Philippines recognizes divorce obtained abroad

Finally!

Twenty years too late in my case!

The important part is the bit I've highlighted in bold, cost me thousands to send Ana back to Korea around 2012 for her to try to get a copy of her original marriage certificate and divorce decree that her Philippine lawyer had lost for her between 2000 and 2004.

We went through the judicial proceedings around that time, 2013 or so, but as you know nothing in the Philippines is simple and you end up having to go through a whole load of filings even after the judicial proceedings are settled and agreed, those final steps are sufficiently complex that between arguments they never got completed and until today or rather until this decision on Friday I could not have married her in the Philippines.

In our case it's probably too late for a whole load of other reasons.

Valid point.

I suppose it depends on exactly how the supreme court in the Philippines interacts with the government, in theory a supreme court is supposed to interpret legislation but in practice, certainly the case in the USA, they can make new law which they really shouldn't do.