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Sunday, April 18, 2004
Sison: Eliminate stigma on illegitimate children
By Mark Allen Sison
ILLEGITIMATE children may soon be allowed to use their father's surname while those born to underage parents may have the chance to be legitimated.
This developed as the Committee on Revision of Laws, under Rep. Orlando Fua, Jr. (Lone District, Siquijor), approved in principle two sets of proposals.
The first set includes House Bills 793 and 4090 filed by Reps. Cynthia Villar (Lone District, Las Piqas City) and Roque Ablan, Jr. (1st District, Ilocos Norte), respectively. These bills propose to amend Article 176 of Executive Order 209 or the Family Code of the Philippines by allowing illegitimate children to use their father's surname when filiation is established or paternity has been expressly recognized by the father through civil registry records or when paternity is admitted in a public document or in a private handwritten instrument signed by the father.
While acknowledging that the limitation on the use of the father's surname is meant to discourage and prevent the entry of spurious descendants in the family and to deter illicit liaisons, Rep. Villar stressed that this situation creates a trauma that hampers the growth and development of an otherwise normal child.
The Family Code states that illegitimate children shall use the surname and shall be under the parental authority of their mother.
Rep. Ablan explained that it is but fair to illegitimate children that upon recognition or consent of their fathers, they can use the latter's surname.
"The stigma attached to their persons on account of the circumstances of their birth will not be obvious," he stated in his explanatory note to HB 4090.
He further said that the bill is a morale booster for a child if he is allowed to carry the name of his father regardless of whether he is born out of wedlock or out of an affection of a married man to a woman who is not married.
Rep. Villar stressed that the bill also addresses the predicament of illegitimate children who are faced with the legal problem of what middle name to use when he or she already carries the mother's maiden surname as his or her surname. "This is one flaw (in the Family Code) which lawmakers have overlooked," she stated.
However, she provided a safeguard to the indiscriminate grant of this privilege through blood grouping or deoxyribonucleic (DNA) tests that determine paternity.
She told the Committee members that this is in consideration of the rights of legitimate children of the man who may be pinpointed as the father of an illegitimate child although he either knew that he is not the father or doubted the paternity claim. "Sometimes the man is under juress maybe because of his love to the woman and he will be forced to admit that he is the father of a child although it is not really his," Rep. Villar said.
Rep. Fua remarked that legitimacy may be established and likewise be impugned under any manner authorized by the rules of court. Under the present judicial set-up, he said, DNA testing is admitted as one of the means for determining paternity or filiation.
However, Rep. Ablan commented that it should not be taken against the child if the man wants to recognize the child as his or authorizes the use of his surname by the child.
Lawyer Alberto Muyot of the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef), strongly supported the passage of the bills.
The two bills were approved in principle. These will be consolidated with HB 4090 as the lead bill.
The second set of approved measures call for the legitimation of children born out of wedlock to couples below 18 years old. These include HBs 116, 660, 795, 991 and 2468 authored by Reps. Magtanggol Gunigundo I (2nd District, Valenzuela City), Oscar Rodriguez (3rd District, Pampanga), Villar, Narciso Monfort (4th District, Iloilo) and Roberto Cajes (2nd District, Bohol), respectively.
The five bills seek to amend Article 177 of the Family Code which states that "only children conceived and born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, may be legitimated."
Rep. Gunigundo, in his sponsorship remarks, reported that the number of children born to unmarried couples below 18 years of age has dramatically increased. He stressed that children born under this circumstance suffer the agony of having illegitimate status even after their parents eventually enter into a contract of marriage and are bound to remain illegitimate unless they are legally adopted by their mature parents.
"Adoption is a very lengthy, tedious and costly procedure, not to mention the painful, bitter and impractical process of adopting one's own child simply because you were underage when the child was born," Rep. Gunigundo said.
Rep. Villar stated that depriving the child of legitimation by the subsequent marriage of his or her parents and the right to carry his or her father's surname for the basic reason of being conceived and born to underage parents is contrary and inconsistent with the provisions of the Child and Youth Welfare Code.
Rep. Eladio "Boy" Jala (3rd District, Bohol) informed the body that he also filed a similar bill during the 11th Congress. He said his proposal was approved on second reading but was overtaken by events. He emphasized that the proposed measure not only intends to eliminate the added expense of adopting a child, but rectifies the absurdity of requiring a natural father to adopt his own child.
The bills got the support of the Department of Social welfare and Development (DSWD), Council for the Welfare of Children (CWS), CARITAS Manila, the Philippine branch of the Consuelo Alger Foundation, and the local civil registries of Quezon City and Valenzuela City.
Lourdes Arsenio, advocacy officer of CARITAS Manila, a Catholic institution, said that children should not suffer for the acts of their irresponsible parents by labeling them illegitimate. The extent of its effect on children, she said, may be gauged in the kind of problems the children encounter as they grow old.
Arsenio also emphasized that the increase in the number of children in conflict with the law in the Philippines can be attributed to having a dysfunctional family. While she acknowledged that there has never been a formal study directly linking illegitimacy of children with criminality, Arsenio claimed that in informal interviews and interactions with juvenile delinquents, they discovered that a good number of them are illegitimate or
have separated parents.
Ma. Elena Caraballo, executive director of the CWC, also supported the passage of the bills. She agreed that these are in consonance with the principle of non-discrimination among children and their rights to education and family as provided for in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in which the Philippines is a State party. Through this proposal, she said, discrimination against illegitimate children can be avoided.
She also asked the authors to mention the commitments of the Philippines as a State party to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the bills' provisions on the declaration of state policy. The five related bills will be consolidated, with HB 116 as the lead bill.
(April 18, 2004 issue)
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