Nathan Alden, Sr.

I commiserate about the concern over Philippine bureaucracy but if you visit the Philippines they already have your name and a bunch of other information. The only thing you need to worry about having a registered marriage is infidelity due to the strict laws. I have to file a Report of Marriage because one of the requirements for the CFO seminar is a PSA marriage license. No RoM, no CEMAR.

I can't edit my original post anymore, but an update: It is possible to perform a full name change in the Philippines but it requires a Regional Trial Court case, and the judge may just decide (after the long, expensive process) to deny it. This option is pretty much off the table now. Now I just need to learn about what downstream effects her changing her name has on the I-130 petition, NVC, and embassy processes.

Hi, all. It's been awhile since I posted. Currently, my I-130 petition for my Filipina spouse is reported to be "1 week" away from review. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I had filed our Report of Marriage with the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco several months ago, which was soon after accepted by the Consulate. However, I've read that the PSA is pushing seven months to process Reports of Marriage. I haven't yet checked with the PSA to determine if they even have the record yet. I am currently in Cebu City with my spouse. Is it simply a matter of traveling to a PSA office here and checking? Now for name changes: when we married we did not change her name as the historical rules around name changes in the Philippines are onerous and IMO ridiculous. My spouse wants to change her full name, so I had originally decided to wait until she got to the US to do so, even knowing that it would affect several official immigration documents at that point. I did this because to my knowledge, Filipinas are only allowed to change their last names, even though I had also read that a law was recently passed stating they can change their full names. As we all know, determining what the law is and what the effective rules are in the Philippines is a nightmare. I know changing her name now will obviate future changes to immigration documents, but I have several questions: Will this affect the I-130 petition in any way if her new name no longer matches the petition? Does it matter whether the petition has yet to be reviewed or is already accepted? Do I need to notify the USCIS or NVC or embassy (as appropriate depending on the status of my case) if she changes her name before visa issuance? If so, how? Is it even possible for her to change her full name in the Philippines? I won't get into why she wants to change her full name as there are very personal and valid reasons for her doing so. The Report of Marriage lag is extremely inconvenient. One wonders what the heck is going on at the PSA... The Consulate in San Francisco reviewed our documentation very quickly. Here's a website describing the insanity required to change one's full name in the Philippines: https://duranschulze.com/how-to-legally-change-your-name-in-the-philippines/

I wanted to get the 13A so I could legally get a motorcycle license, legally work, etc., if I wanted to. Plus, it didn't seem that difficult to acquire--at least until now. 😛

I'm originally from Massachusetts, USA and my wife is originally from a tiny farming village called Bagumbang in Misamis Occidental, Philippines.

I had a half-hour call with a Philippine visa specialist yesterday. I explained my situation--that I'm a US citizen married to a Philippine citizen and, due to insane immigration timelines here in the US, I've decided to live in the Philippines for a couple of years. I was advised of three things: The SRRV minimum age is now 50+ when all published information I could find says 35+ The Bureau of Immigration is rejecting online marriages--which my wife and I did through Utah County, even though we were both together in the Philippines--as illegitimate for the purposes of 13A issuance My wife and I should get remarried in the Philippines and then use that marriage as our "official" marriage for PSA and BI purposes (yes, she actually suggested this) This was the first time hearing any of this from any source. This leaves me in a tricky bind. I'm already legally married to her through Utah County. Aren't I technically breaking Philippine law by getting remarried there? Given how bureaucratic and incongruous these various Philippine government agencies are, I'm not sure what information to trust. The PSA will apparently honor my online marriage through the Report of Marriage form, but the BI won't. It makes no sense. I'd rather not get married in the Philippines illegally, have some bureaucrat in the BI discover that, and then get my 13A revoked and be banned from the country. I'm also now apparently too young for the SRRV. Has anyone run into this? Is my visa specialist trolling me?

Since I filed my I-130 petition electronically in mid-June, my "wait time" (scare quotes because who knows the ridiculous database query they're using to generate that number--or maybe it's just RNG?) has gone from 16 months to 18 months to 5 months. We're talking about a 20-day span. Sorry for your frustration, OP. I decided to move to the Philippines to be with my wife to survive these insane wait times. I'm in the process of selling everything here, even my car, and taking my cash there. Sure, the quality of life isn't as good at the US, but at least we can, you know, love each other in person. Thanks, US immigration! 👍

AFAIK that is not a thing in the US. We also don't have the equivalent to CEMAR/CENOMAR since marriages are registered civilly at the county level. The Philippines is basically forced to go on the honor system to some extent. Providing divorce decrees is necessary, though.

Yes, that's our plan. I'm going to mail the San Francisco consulate the packet from the Philippines.

There are a couple of annoying things about doing it this way: I will lose access to my marriage license apostille for the duration of the processing (several months, last I heard). I'll have to order a second one to take with me to the Philippines in case I need it. I already had to order a second certified copy of my birth certificate for the same reason. The return envelope will have to be addressed to some other mailing address in the US (probably my parents' house). Something to think about.

I decided to just go back to the Philippines (which I was anyway) and do it all there.

That was my plan. However, I learned that there is still a specific medical requirement that I can't meet. I've abandoned the 13A as a viable path.

Thanks. I completely forgot the laws about foreigners never being able to own property, and I had just read that a few days ago! I'm too stressed, LOL.

Thank you. I have plans for both of those things. I figured the steps were relatively simple.

Hi, all. I'm a US citizen who recently submitted Form I-130 for my Filipina spouse (although the overseas country shouldn't matter much for this discussion). Given the insane two- to three-year waits that seem to be inevitable before her visa interview, I decided to move to the Philippines to live with her for the time being. Finances are not an issue and I have nothing tying me to the US. My plan once I get to the Philippines is to rent a house or an apartment with her jointly in order to begin gathering co-mingling evidence. I'll apply for an ACR-I card as soon as possible, then apply for a 13(a) visa so that I am able to legally work, own property, etc. (things that can't be done on a non-immigrant visa). While there, I plan on saving every receipt, ticket, itinerary, photo, etc. that can be used as evidence during the visa interview. For employment, she and I are going to start an online business based in the US that should be usable during the visa interview to prove support of beneficiary and also intent to re-domicile, which seem to be two problems people commonly run into during that stage. We also plan on taking a motorcycle driving course and buying a motorcycle. My question for the experienced people here: What else should I focus on gathering or doing to ensure the visa interview goes as smoothly as possible?

Was your petition submitted by mail or electronically? I submitted my Form I-130 a few days ago electronically and it immediately showed up in my USCIS dashboard.

We're actually married. My goal is to immediately apply for the 13(a) visa upon arrival, which means I'd only need to extend my stay for a month or two.

After a ton of research last night, I determined that the better thing to do is enter the country under the 30-day visa exemption, then apply for an extension, and then continue that process as long as necessary.

Yep, I discovered the alternate way to apply but the Houston consulate directs me to a website that has been "under maintenance" since May 31. From https://houstonpcg.dfa.gov.ph/index.php/consular-services/visa-services:

I also discovered that the DFA's visa application website has also been down for maintenance since May 31, 2024. There appears to be no way to actually submit a Philippines visa application at the moment because the government's policy is to use one of these two systems. I emailed the Houston consolate to report the issues and ask for advice.

I reported this to a DFA support email address since I couldn't find a single piece of contact information on the eVisaPH website. I'll see what they say, if anything. This seems like a pretty serious bug.

Slightly off-topic, but I figured many of you would have done this during your interactions with the Philippines. I just created an account on the otherwise-excellent eVisaPH website. I filled out all my personal information as required. I triple-checked that everything is correct. However, when I begin a new visa application, for some reason the website populates the Country of Application box with only India! I have no idea why this is happening. There is absolutely no reference to India in my personal information. I am not using a VPN and I'm connecting to the website from Texas. Has anyone run into this problem before? There doesn't seem to be any way to contact them to report a website bug. The Country of Citizenship drop-down list is in several other places on the website and they all auto-populate with only India. Manually typing in United States of America does not work.

I decided to have a bit of fun with this by editing the browser DOM:

Hah, I just experienced that for myself this morning. Now it's 18 months! I would love to see the database query they're using to calculate this number.

Very interesting. See, this is why I love asking VisaJourney these questions! There's an answer somewhere if I dig deeply enough. 😊