Tag Archives: cenomar

Updated: Church Requirements

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Called both Lipa Chancery and Xavier Parish this morning and finally steps have been nailed down.

What the Lipa Chancery needs is for us to submit copies of the following:

  1. my Baptismal Certificate
  2. my Confirmation Certificate
  3. Marriage Contract – translated copy attached
  4. Copy of my CENOMAR (certificate of no marriage)
  5. Groom’s Certificate of Singleness – Koseki Tohon (Family Register) and the translated copy will suffice
  6. Certificate of Freedom to Marry for the Groom – Item 5 will suffice since Hubbie is non-practicing Christian
  7. Photocopy of the Groom’s passport

Since I’m now in Manila, they agreed that I can send the copies to them via LBC. They will then assess our papers and if cleared, and granting availability of the priest, they will schedule us for an interview on January 4 (to be confirmed) . Depending on the interview results, they will issue a clearance certificate to Xavier Parish, informing the Parish of the “go signal” for us to marry.

At the same time, I will also send copies of the following to Xavier Parish via LBC:

  1. Marriage Certificate
  2. New Copy of Baptismal Certificate
  3. New Copy of Confirmation Certificate
  4. Name/License No. of Officiating Priest
  5. Name of Sponsors
  6. Wallet size picture

If in case I still don’t have with me Items 4 and 5, no problem with them, says Sally. They will then issue the request for the publication of the wedding banns which I will publish in my hometown in Davao.

Xavier Parish will adjust our Canonical interview schedule depending on our interview schedule with Lipa Chancery, granting availability of Parish Priest. So if our schedule with Lipa Chancery is morning of January 4, they can schedule us on the afternoon of January 4 (to be confirmed).

So happy!

At the time of publication, the following are the helpful contact details of both Lipa Chancery and Xavier Parish:

Lipa Chancery: 6343.7562572; 63917.3545163; Archdiocesan Chancery, Archdiocese of Lipa, Cathedral Site, Lipa City, Batangas; Contact: Ivy P. Vilela

Xavier Parish: 6343.4160564; St. Francis Xavier Parish JP Laurel St. Nasugbu, Batangas 4231; Contact: Sally Dastas

Civilly married!

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Finally, after some ups and starts, Atsushi and I are civilly married already!

To get officially married, we had to submit the following to Minami Ward (the Ward office closest to where Atsushi is staying now):

  1. Atsushi’s Koseki Tohon
  2. my CNO
  3. my Birth Certificate
  4. photocopies of the pages of my passport
  5. application form which includes hanko and details of our two witnesses who should be 20 years old and above. We had Atsushi’s batchmates as our witnesses.

I look forward to our Church wedding; a wedding that would be very special.

We also had a couple of achievements yesterday:

1. got our CNO from the Philippine embassy which of course  is one of the requirements for our civil marriage.

2. we finally selected, ordered and paid for our wedding rings!!! Oh how lovely were they! Too bad I wasn’t able to take a picture of them as I ran out of cp batteries already. Both Atsushi’s and my ring are platinum with mine encrusted with five diamonds. Can’t wait till we pick them up come January 18, 2011!!

Count thy blessings yes. And I thank you Lord. And oh yes, I hope to post soon my great experience with Atsushi’s family last weekend.

CNO

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Applied for our Certificate of No Objection (CNO) at the Philippine Embassy today (Sept 14), yey! It was quite chaotic in the area, what with all the crowd at such a small space and with all the screaming and crying children but we got all our requirements done right:

  1. Atsushi’s Koseki Tohon
  2. Atsushi’s Juminhyo
  3. Marjorie’ s Birth Certificate (DFA authenticated)
  4. Marjorie’s CENOMAR which indicated “Marriage” as the purpose (DFA authenticated)
  5. photocopies of the above (thankfully there’s a photocopying machine in the area)
  6. 2 copies each of passport sized picture.

Our CNO will be released on Sept 21 (5 days after), afterwich we can then go to the ward office to register our marriage civilly.

CNO Basic Fee : US$25
Affidavit of Civil Status : US$25
English Translation(of Koseki Tohon or Juri Shomeisho x 2): US$50
TOTAL  : US$100

After the Philippine Embassy chaos, we relaxed a bit in Starbucks Roponggi and at 5pm, headed to Funabashi to meet with Maha and incidentally, Kawauchi-san (who just arrived yesterday with his family from the United States after staying there for almost three years). We had such a great dinner with them! =)

at Starbucks near Roponggi station

Japan Visa

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The moment I received the agent’s text, telling me my passport is ready for pickup and that I was granted a 30-day tourist visa, my mind was echoing “yey!!” over and over again. I was in the bus at that time so of course I can’t scream my happiness so I just emailed H2B Atsushi about the good news and informed Kat & Rey that I need to go pick up my passport hence we need to change our meeting venue (we planned to watch Despicable Me which was really funny!). Aside from “yey” though, “thank you” was also prevalent in my mind and I so sent my thanks to the heavens above.

It seemed like a pretty long three weeks for us. Atsushi and I are quite new with processing government documents, and with no assistance (immigration lawyer and the like) we solely relied on the internet for guidance. Also, it was the first time for Reli Tours Southmall (the agency who assisted us in our application – all Japan visa applications, except for those government related ones, are now coursed through select agencies) to handle an application for tourist visa for the purpose of marriage. Hence, when we submitted our papers, we just based it on what was posted on the Embassy website and based on Reli Tour’s checklist which includes the following:

  1. Passport (of course! haha)
  2. Birth Certificate (for this I am exempted already because I have used Japan visas)
  3. Itinerary of Japan visit (for this, since purpose is marriage, our marriage itinerary should be indicated)
  4. Documents to prove relationship with the guarantor (this includes our photos, emails)
  5. Invitation letter from Atsushi
  6. my bank certificate 
  7. my Income Tax Return
  8. Atsushi’s Residence Certificate Juminhyo
  9. Guarantee letter by Atsushi
  10. Atsushi’s Income Certificate (Shotoku Shomeisho), Tax Return Certificate (Nouzei Shomeisho) KAKUTEISHINKOKUSHO HIKAE or Bank Certificate (YOKIN ZANDAKA SHOMEISHO).

Of course, prior to application, I had to inquire in the embassy if it was legal to use tourist visa for the purpose of getting married. We received a positive reply that it was indeed legal – a happy thing.

After submitting to the Embassy though, the Embassy required for additional documents which included:

11. my CENOMAR (Certificate of No Marriage or Certificate of Singleness)

12. Atsushi’s Koseki Tohon (Family Register)

13. Further proof of our relationship (I printed more emails, hotel vouchers in Vietnam, flight itineraries, more pictures. I even printed out our Skype conversations)

14. Invitation letter from Atsushi’s dad including his Certificate of Seal (Inkan Shomei)

15. a letter recounting our love story which had to include when, where and how Atsushi and I met; our love story from the time we met up to now; when, where and time of proposal.

16. a copy of Atsushi’s passport including pages showing his departure and arrival stamp here in Philippines (as additional document, we showed the stamps in Vietnam as well).

Obtaining the documents required a lot of effort and time. Plus, Atsushi has to send the documents to me from Japan. There was also a time when we had to wait for the documents from Oto-san to arrive. Hence, waiting was quite a challenge. But truly, seeing my sakura-themed visa and thinking of imminent reunion with Atsushi, all the work and effort are all worth it.

This is just the first step as we still have a number of steps to comply before being legible to a spouse visa. But, one step at a time, and with prayers and God’s grace, we can make it through.

birth cert and CENOMAR

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‘Twas quite a productive day. I was able to apply for student permit at LTO via A1. For this task, I felt like a lemming. A1 told me yesterday to show up at 12:30pm. I just thought that we were gonna have some lecture. So, I was surprised when after the lecture, we were on our way to LTO for the picture taking and student’s permit application. So to LTO Las Pinas we were.

It was just quite good really because I can then head directly to Las Pinas City Hall to inquire about the marriage certificate license. I got the application forms, yes. But I got perplexed by the info Agot (the officer who took care of me) that my H2B (husband to be) and I should be together when we submit our papers for application. Reason is that we are gonna be interviewed first and that we will be attending 1 day seminars. We will then wait for 10 days for the release of our marriage certificate afterwhich, we can then have our civil wedding ceremony. This means either H2B fly here from Japan twice and be on leave from work at least 5 days or stay here for 2 full weeks. These options or I will fly to Japan and we’ll have our ceremony there. sigh. What to do?

Anyways, I was able to pay already for my Birth certificate and CENOMAR (Certificate of No Marriage). Was also able to make inquiry with Fernbrooks.

Let’s just count the blessings.