According to Article
412 of the New Civil Code, no entry in a civil register shall be changed or
corrected, without a judicial order. Thus, a person desiring to amend any wrong
entry in his/her certificate of live birth needs to go to court. However, this
was the rule before the enactment of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9048 or more popularly
known as the Clerical Error Law in 2001.
Under this law, no entry in a civil register shall be changed or corrected
without a judicial order, except for clerical or typographical errors
and change of first name or nickname which can be corrected or changed
by the concerned city or municipal civil registrar or consul general (Section
1, RA No. 9048).
Clerical or typographical errors is
defined by the said law as follows:
“Section 2. Definition of Terms – As
used in this Act, the following terms shall mean:
xxx
(3) “Clerical or typographical error” refers to a mistake committed in
the performance of clerical work in writing, copying, transcribing or typing an
entry in the civil register that is harmless and innocuous, such as misspelled
name or misspelled place of birth or the like, which is visible to the eyes or
obvious to the understanding, and can be corrected or changed only by reference
to other existing record or records: Provided, however, That no correction must
involve the change of nationality, age, status or sex of the petitioner.
xxx”
Consequently, errors in the civil register pertaining to the
nationality, age, status or sex of a person may be corrected only by filing a
petition in court. However, to address the dilemma of some of our fellowmen pertaining
to issues other than clerical or typographical errors and change of first name or
nickname, R.A. No. 10172 was enacted amending some provisions of R.A. No. 9048
by giving authority to the city or municipal civil registrar or consul general
to correct errors in the entry of sex
and day and month of birth of a person in the civil register.
With
the advent of these new laws pertinent to the correction of entries in the
birth certificate, many of our fellow countrymen would be eased of the burden
of going to the court just to correct errors in the entries of our one of the
most important documents in life – the Birth Certificate.
I
am hoping that you may find useful information in this post, and continuously
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