Adopting a poor child

Adopting a poor child

Monday, 08 February 2010 22:19

Promotes common good One of the things the rich and upper middle class families can do to help reduce our country’s mass poverty problem—which means helping human beings have a better life—is adopting an abandoned child. Or adopting a child whose parents, realizing their child’s need for a better life in the bosom of another family, would give him or her up.

The adoptive parents should of course be willing to invest their love in another human being in addition to those they have already as their birth sons and daughters.

They should realize that by adopting another child they will be dutybound to give the child a loving and caring family, a cradle of life and love.

In her or his adoptive family, the child—with the adoptive parents’ and siblings’ love and care—will develop her or his potentialities, become conscious of his or her dignity as a person made by God and learn to face his or her own and unique destiny as an adult and future parent.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church’s Point No. 2379 says: “The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord’s Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others.” From this one can see that even those who already have children can “give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children.” And also those that their poverty-stricken parents have no hope of giving a good Christian life.

In Christian doctrine, all the baptized are adopted children of God the Father. They are brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ in faith and in grace. CCC’s Point 2009 says: “Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us ‘co-heirs’ with Christ and worthy of obtaining “the promised inheritance of eternal life. The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness . . .”

Adopting a child and trying our best to give that human being the same love, security, comfort, and affection we give our blood-children is a partaking in God’s magnanimity.

Without any doubt, adopting children promotes the common good.

These thoughts are in our minds as we call attention to the fact that since February 6 it has been “Adoption Consciousness Week.” It ends on February 13, a notice from the Department of Social Welfare and Development says.

Every first Saturday of February, since 1999, when Presidential Proclamation No. 72 was issued, is “Adoption Consciousness Day” and the days after that make up “Adoption Consciousness Week.”

‘Promote! Legal Adoption, Not Simulation’

Each year the DSWD chooses a theme, which reflects the most pressing problem pertaining to adoption. Because child-trafficking has become a major concern, this year’s theme is “Isulong! Legal na Pag-aampon, Hindi Simulation,” [Promote! Legal Adoption, Not Simulation] which reflects the government’s intensified efforts for legal adoption and against fake or spurious adoption.

The National Organizing Committee of the weeklong observance is headed by the DSWD and composed of members from the Association of Child Caring Agencies of the Philippines (ACCAP) and the Inter-country Adoption Board (ICAB). They decided to make the observance an eight-day set of activities all over the country and agreed to hold a week-long observance to gain more time to generate awareness of the importance of legal adoption and the evils of simulated ones.

In convocations or adoption forums held during the week, speakers and panelists discuss the many issues that arise in connection with adoption. Of course, warnings against simulated adoptions are aired and calls to uphold the legal adoption process, even if this is more painstaking than just using counterfeit papers, are made. One such forum will be held on February 10 at the New Session Hall at the Makati City Hall.

The public is told of the legal adoption procedures and how these protect the rights of children and work to safeguard their best interest.

Another activity is the setting up of Adoption Help or Adoption Inquiry Desks in the SM malls around the country. DSWD representatives will man these desks. They will help families who want to adopt children and teach them how to handle the paperwork and comport themselves for the interviews.

Legal adoption gives the child the same rights and duties as if he or she were a biological child of the adoptive parents. The adoptive mother and father both acquire the reciprocal rights and obligations arising from the relationship of parent and child including the right of the adopted child to use the surname of the adoptive parents.

In contrast, simulation involves tampering of civil registry records, making it appear in the birth certificate that the child was born to a person who is not his or her biological mother, causing the child to lose his or her true identity.

Under Republic Act 8552 or the Domestic Adoption Act of 1998, simulation of birth is punishable by imprisonment ranging from six years and one day to 12 years and/or a fine not less than P50,000 but not more than P200,000.