We had to wait till the revised Koseki Tohon (Family Register) was issued before we had to report our marriage to the Philippine embassy in Japan. NB: Revised Koseki Tohon will already reflect my name as hubby’s wifey on their family tree. As such, hubby was only able to apply for our ROM last Oct 25 – more than a month after our civil marriage. In any case, kudos hubby for successfully getting through the maze in Philippine Embassy in Tokyo! =)

Now, as usual, ROM is not just “reporting”. It has a lot of documentation required.

1. Duly accomplished Report of Marriage (ROM) application form available at the Consular Information Counter, or downloadable from the official Embassy website at http://tokyo.philembassy.net. It would be helpful if you try to secure ahead of time a blank copy of the form. Forms are forms and there might be additional requirements that are indicated on the form which wasn’t stated on the website nor was informed by the government official when you had your inquiry. This was our lessons learned for the civil marriage application form in Minami Ward Office.
2. One original and 2 copies of Certified true copy of the Marriage Notification Report to City Hall (Konintodoke no Kisai Jiko Shomeisho). This one is the equivalent of the Marriage certificate here in Philippines.
3. One Original and 2 copies of the following, whichever is applicable, to be obtained from the City Hall:
   • If spouse is Japanese, latest Family Registry (Koseki Tohon) reflecting the couple’s place and date of marriage. (Koseki Shohon, Certificate of Acceptance of Marriage is NOT acceptable)
   • If spouse is a Foreign National other than Japanese:
     1. Certificate of Acceptance of Marriage (Juri Shomeisho) showing the couple’s place and date of marriage.
     2. Two (2) Passport copies of foreign national
4. Certificate of No Objection (CNO)  (2 copies)
5. Birth Certificate of the Filipino spouse in security paper issued by the NSO (Original & 2 copies). The Philippine Embassy required that the birth certificate I give them has to be further authenticated by the DFA. I got several copies hence the one we submitted was not only NSO authenticated but DFA authenticated as well.

REMINDERS:

• The Koseki Tohon can usually be obtained after one week (or more) from the City Hall which accepted the marriage of the couple. In our case, it was “or more”.
• The original of the CNO goes to the City Hall while the photocopy is retained by the Filipino applicant for future reference.  An applicant is reminded to secure and retain a photocopy of all important documents submitted to the City Hall, such as CNO and authenticated Birth Certficate, etc., in case they are required for submission to the Embassy.

FEES:

Basic Fee : US$25
Translation Fee (of Koseki Tohon) : US$25

Above full information was taken from The Philippine Embassy Consular Section ROM webpage.

Oh by the way, it would take 2 weeks before we can obtain the certificate of ROM which we will use in our other applications. And yes, we still have more documentations and applications our way. Both in Japan, and here, for the Church wedding. Goodluck to us hubby! =)