5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly passbook entrusted to the custody of the Clerk of Court a quo within the same period, withdrawable only by the children or their attorney-in-fact. A number 8 is hereby added, which shall read as follows: 8. Respondent David A. Noveras is hereby ordered to pay petitioner Leticia Tacbiana (sic) the amount of P1,040,000.00 representing her share in the proceeds from the sale of the Sampaloc property. The last paragraph shall read as follows: Send a copy of this Decision to the local civil registry of Baler, Aurora; the local civil registry of Quezon City; the Civil Registrar-General, National Statistics Office, Vibal Building, Times Street corner EDSA, Quezon City; the Office of the Registry of Deeds for the Province of Aurora; and to the children, Jerome Noveras and Jena Noveras. The rest of the Decision is AFFIRMED.[12] In the present petition, David insists that the Court of Appeals should have recognized the California Judgment which awarded the Philippine properties to him because said judgment was part of the pleading presented and offered in evidence before the trial court. David argues that allowing Leticia to share in the Philippine properties is tantamount to unjust enrichment in favor of Leticia considering that the latter was already granted all US properties by the California court. In summary and review, the basic facts are: David and Leticia are US citizens who own properties in the USA and in the Philippines. Leticia obtained a decree of divorce from the Superior Court of California in June 2005 wherein the court awarded all the properties in the USA to Leticia. With respect to their properties in the Philippines, Leticia filed a petition for judicial separation of conjugal properties. At the outset, the trial court erred in recognizing the divorce decree which severed the bond of marriage between the parties. In Corpuz v. Sto. Tomas,[13] we stated that: The starting point in any recognition of a foreign divorce judgment is the acknowledgment that our courts do not take judicial notice of foreign judgments and laws. Justice Herrera explained that, as a rule, “no sovereign is bound to give effect within its dominion to a judgment rendered by a tribunal of another country.” This means that the foreign judgment and its authenticity must be proven as facts under our rules on evidence, together with the alien’s applicable national law to show the effect of the judgment on the alien himself or herself. The recognition may be made in an action instituted specifically for the purpose or in another action where a party invokes the foreign decree as an integral aspect of his claim or defense.[14] elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57649 6/13