IN one case, a woman filed a case for petition for habeas corpus in order to get custody of her alleged daughter. The woman claimed that her baby daughter, Arabella, was hospitalized, but she could not be discharged because she could not pay the bill. Years later, the woman sought to regain custody of a girl named Cristina Grace Neri, who was abandoned in the hospital when she was still a baby and placed under the care of a certain Maura Neri.
The Regional Trial Court ordered the return of the daughter to the woman-petitioner, who appears to be the mother of the child, per her birth certificate. But the case was elevated to the Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court.
In deciding cases of this nature, the Supreme Court laid down the following requisites: “(1) that the petitioner has the right of custody over the minor; (2) that the rightful custody of the minor is being withheld from the petitioner by the respondent; and (3) that it is to the best interest of the minor concerned to be in the custody of petitioner and not that of the respondent.”
The Supreme Court declared that none of the requisites existed in this case. The Court ruled that the petitioner was not entitled to the custody of the child because it was not proven that Cristina was in fact Arabella. The Court also ruled that petitioner failed to establish that she was entitled to the custody of Cristina and as such, that Neri was unlawfully withholding Cristina from her.
The Supreme Court added that in all questions regarding the custody of the child, the paramount consideration is always the best welfare of the child. On this issue, the Court determined that Neri was financially, physically and spiritually in a better position to take care of the child compared to the petitioner who had no fixed income and forced to leave her other child with the nuns. (Sombong vs. Court of Appeals, et al., G.R. No. 111876 [1996])