Amending Executive Order No. 209, Otherwise Known as the "Family Code of the Philippines"

E.O. 227 Published update 20 Oct 2026 285


MALACAÑANG
MANILA

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES

EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 227

AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 209, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE
"FAMILY CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES"

Edition note. As of October 2026, the Article 39 quotation in Section 3 reflects R.A. No. 8533, approved February 23, 1998, which removed the ten-year prescriptive proviso introduced by E.O. No. 227. This page therefore includes that later amendment rather than reproducing E.O. No. 227 solely as enacted.

I, CORAZON C. AQUINO, President of the Philippines, do hereby order:

SECTION 1. Article 26 — Article 26 of Executive Order No. 209 is hereby amended to read as follows:

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.

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.

SEC. 2. Article 36 — Article 36 of Executive Order No. 209 is hereby amended to read as follows:

Art. 36. A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization.

SEC. 3. Article 39 — Article 39 of the Executive Order No. 209 is hereby amended to read as follows:

Art. 39. The action or defense for the declaration of absolute nullity of a marriage shall not prescribe.

(As amended by R.A. No. 8533, approved February 23, 1998)

SEC. 4. — This Executive Order shall take effect upon the effectivity of the Family Code of the Philippines.

Done in the City of Manila, this 17th day of July, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty-seven.

(Sgd.) CORAZON C. AQUINO
President of the Philippines

By the President:

(Sgd.) JOKER P. ARROYO
Executive Secretary