Poe seeks to eliminate judicial process in child adoption

MANILA - Sen. Grace Poe on Monday appealed to Cabinet officials to urge President Rodrigo Duterte to certify as urgent a bill which would hasten the process of adoption in the Philippines.

Poe, who was adopted by movie stars Susan Roces and the late Fernando Poe Jr., recently filed Senate Bill 1070 or the Domestic Administrative Adoption Act which seeks to establish an administrative adoption system and eliminate the judicial phase of adoption.

“This bill mirrors our belief that an administrative proceeding will hasten the process, minimize the cost, declog our courts, and prod more people to embark on the legal fasttrack to adopting a child,” Poe said in a speech during the ceremonial signing of the implementing rules of Republic Act 11222 or the Simulated Birth Rectification Act at the central office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

“So I would like to appeal to the Cabinet officials here today, to convince the President to certify this measure as urgent so it could fasttrack its way through Congress.”

Poe said that as of 2018, some 6,500 Filipino children were in need of a permanent home. Of this number, 3,973 have already been made legally available for adoption since 2009.

“I have said this before, but I share this with you again today, ‘Adopting one child may not change the world; but will certainly change the world for that child,’” said Poe, who is a foundling herself.

In March, Duterte signed a law that rectifies simulated birth, a practice of tampering of the civil registry to make it appear in the record of birth that a child was born to a person who is not such child’s biological mother, causing the loss of the true identity and status of such child.

The law allows the rectification of simulated birth of a child where the simulation was made “for the best interest of the child, and that such child has been consistently considered and treated by the person or persons who simulated such birth as her, his, or their own daughter or son.”