Hi

[Jenky]

Your girlfriend should go to the NSO in Manila and ask for a CENOMAR which is a certificate of no marriage. Because the Embassy will require this should you ever apply for a visa/marriage license. if her CENOMAR comes back as "no marriage recorded" then you dont have a problem. If it comes back as married to XXXXXXX then that marriage will have to be annulled before you two can get ever get married, even if her recorded marriage is fake and the husband now has 20 wives! Why is that? because the marriage has been recorded at the NSO and only an annullment will undo that record making your girlfriend able to marry somebody else. The good thing is that if the recorded marriage is fake (as my wifes was with a fake marriage license) then the annullment is straightforward.
Annulment is not cheap (>£2000 three years ago, even for a simple case) in the Philippines and can take up to a year. We used an attorney in Manila called Jeannie Pulido, she was great.

[Russell_61]

Thank you so much for this Jenky. Yes we're treating it as if Jen is still married as neither of us want to live with false hopes. We know it will be a long and expensive process but we feel our love is strong enough to see us through anything. Once we know for certain where we stand then we can move forward. jen and her mum are going to visit the NSO soon so we should know more by then. The fact that her husband says he is married again is the confusing part as he is either a bigamist or indeed he has paid someone to wipe the records. Either that or the marriage was void from the outset, but as you say even that would need to be officially annulled. Jen says she has a marriage certificate and says they were married in a civil ceremony not a church one. Hmmmmm all very confusing but hopefully we will know more soon. We will keep you updated and no doubt ask for much valued advice

thank you so much once again