Welcome back!! Hello September! It’s been BERmonths and I just can feel the cool breeze of the wind flipping through my hair. It is another month of exciting journey because I will feature some of the latest laws relevant and applicable to our everyday lives. I was snowed under during the past few months due to my load but I am here now to continue this saga of my “Legal Tidbits.”
The passage of RA 10172 otherwise known as “An Act Authorizing the City or Municipal Registrar or the Consul General to correct Clerical Errors in the Day and Month in the date of birth or Sex of a person appearing in the civil register without need of judicial order” clearly eased the burden of many Filipinos who are continually beset by problems regarding errors in the entries of civil registry documents such as birth certificates. However, the law does not only relieve the people of the nagging problems such as non-issuance of passports from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), denial of claims with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Social Security System (SSS) and other government agencies because of error among civil registry documents and the expensive and tedious legal process but it also helps decongest court dockets considering that the remedy provided for under the law is purely administrative in nature.
The law expands the coverage of RA 9048 or the Clerical Error Law which originally pertains to a change or correction of first name or nickname only. With the legislation of RA 10172, aside from change of first name or nickname, correction of errors in the day and month in the date of birth and sex of a person can also be made through the submission of the following documents:
1. Petition shall be in the form of an affidavit, subscribed and sworn to before any person authorized by law to administer oaths stating the facts necessary to establish the merits of the petition;
2. A certified true machine copy of the certificate or of the page of the registry book containing the entry or entries sought to be corrected or changed;
3. Earliest school record or earliest school documents such as, but not limited to, medical records, baptismal certificate and other documents issued by religious authorities;
4. Certification issued by an accredited government physician attesting to the fact that the petitioner has not undergone sex change or sex transplant.
5. Certification from the appropriate law enforcements, agencies that he has no pending case or no criminal record.
The petition and its supporting papers shall be filed in three (3) copies to be distributed as follows: first copy to the concerned city or municipal civil registrar, or the consul general; second copy to the Office of the Civil Registrar General; and third copy to the petitioner (Section 5, RA 10172).
The petition for change of first name or nickname, or for correction of erroneous entry concerning the day and month in the date of birth or the sex of a person, as the case may be, shall be published at least once a week for two (2) consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation (Section 5, RA 10172).http://www.gov.ph/2012/08/15/republic-act-no-10172/
The State, thus, through its law-making power by the legislative branch of the government was able to effect the realization of the spirit and letter of the law. Mazzini[1], one of the great political thinkers, pointed out that “the law must express the general aspiration, promote the good of all, respond to a beat of the nation’s heart. The whole nation therefore should be, directly or indirectly, the legislator.” We are thankful that the good Valenzuela City Representative Magi Gunigundo principally authored the law which paved the way for lessening the inconvenience and fulfilling the needs and aspiration of the people.
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