Live-in partners want to get married without license

Live-in partners want to get married without license "I was only 19 years old when I cohabited with my boyfriend. We decided not to get married as we were both young then. Now that we are both 25 years old, we have agreed to finally marry especially that we are expecting a baby soon. Is it true that we no longer need a marriage license?Mara Dear Mara,A marriage license is one of the formal requisites of a valid marriage (Article 3, Family Code of the Philippines). As a general rule, each of the contracting parties to a marriage shall need to file separately a sworn application for a marriage license with the proper local civil registrar, stating among others, their full name, place of birth, age and date of birth, civil status, present residence and citizenship and their degree of relationship. However, there are instances where a marriage license is no longer necessary. One of which is in case the future spouses only seek to ratify their cohabitation because they have lived together as husband and wife for at least five years without any legal impediment to marry each other (Article 34, Family Code of the Philippines).To be able to legally ratify your cohabitation with your boyfriend and be exempted from the marriage license requirement, you must comply with the following requisites as enunciated in the case of Herminia Borja-Manzano vs. Judge Roque Sanchez (A.M. No. MTJ-00-1329, March 08, 2001): 1. The man and woman must have been living together as husband and wife for at least five years before the marriage2. The parties must have no legal impediment to marry each other 3. The fact of absence of legal impediment between the parties must be present at the time of marriage4. The parties must execute an affidavit stating that they have lived together for at least five years [and are without legal impediment to marry each other] and5. The solemnizing officer must execute a sworn statement that he had ascertained the qualifications of the parties and that he had found no legal impediment to their marriage.The absence of any of the foregoing requisites will not entitle you from the exemption of the marriage license requirement. If this is the case, you shall need to apply for a valid marriage license with the local civil registrar of the place where you reside. The license, once obtained, shall be valid in any part of the Philippines for a period of one hundred twenty days from the date of issue, and shall be deemed automatically cancelled at the expiration of the said period if the contracting parties have not made use of it.Finally, we wish to remind you that this opinion is solely based on your narration of facts and our appreciation of the same. The opinion may vary if other facts are added or elaborated.We hope that we were able to address your concern.Editor’s note: Dear PAO is a daily column of the Public Attorney’s Office. Questions for Chief Acosta may be sent to dearpao@manilatimes.net or via text message (key in: Times dearpao and send to 2299)." - https://www.affordablecebu.com/