Adong vs. Cheong Seng Gee
Adong vs. Cheong Seng Gee
Adong vs. Cheong Seng Gee
March 3, 1922]
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46 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED
MALCOLM, J.:
The trial judge found, as we have said, that the proof did
not sustain the allegation of the claimant Cheong Seng
Gee, that Cheong Boo had married in China. His Honor
noted a strong inclination on the part of the Chinese
witnesses, especially the brother of Cheong Boo, to protect
the interests of the alleged son, Cheong Seng Gee, by
overstepping the limits of truthfulness. His Honor also
noted that reliable witnesses stated that in the year 1895,
when Cheong Boo was supposed to have been in China, he
was in reality in Jolo, in the Philippine Islands. We are not
disposed to disturb this appreciation of fact by the trial
court. The immigration documents only go to show the
relation of parent and child existing between the deceased
Cheong Boo and his son Cheong Seng Gee and do not
establish the marriage between the deceased and the
mother of Cheong Seng Gee.
Section IV of the Marriage Law (General Order No. 68)
provides that "All marriages contracted without these
Islands, which would be valid by the laws of the country in
which the same were contracted, are valid in these
Islands." To establish a valid foreign marriage pursuant to
this comity provision, it is first necessary to prove before
the courts of the Islands the existence of the foreign law as
a question of fact, and it is then necessary to prove the
alleged foreign marriage by convincing evidence.
A case directly in point is the leading one of Sy Joc Lieng
vs. Encarnacion ([1910], 16 Phil., 137; [1913], 228 U. S.,
335). Here, the courts of the Philippines and the Supreme
Court of the United States were called upon to decide, as to
the conflicting claims to the estate of a Chinese merchant,
between the descendants of an alleged Chinese marriage
and the descendants of an alleged Philippine marriage. The
Supreme Courts of the Philippine Islands and the United
States united in holding that the Chinese marriage was not
adequately proved. The legal rule was stated by the United
States Supreme Court to be this: A Philippine marriage,
followed by forty years of uninterrupted
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