Case Digest (G.R. No. 232053)
Facts:
Republic of the Philippines, G.R. No. 232053, July 15, 2020, Supreme Court First Division, Lopez, J., writing for the Court. The petitioner is the Republic of the Philippines (through the Office of the Solicitor General in the proceedings below); the respondent is Annabelle Ontuca y Peleno (mother and guardian of her minor child, Zsanine Kimberly Jariol y Ontuca).Annabelle gave birth to Zsanine on August 14, 2000, assisted by registered midwife Corazon Carabeo, who volunteered to register the birth with the Parañaque City Civil Registrar. When the delivered birth certificate was shown to Annabelle, she discovered multiple errors: (a) Entry No. 6 showed her name as “MARY ANNABELE [sic]” and misspelled her middle name as “PALINO”; (b) Entry No. 18 indicated the parents’ date and place of marriage as “May 25, 1999 at Occ. Mindoro” though Annabelle was not married to the child’s father; and (c) Entry No. 20 identified Annabelle as the informant instead of the midwife.
To correct those entries, Annabelle filed a petition under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court (Special Proceedings No. 15‑66) before the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 195, Parañaque City. The RTC held hearings, required service on the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), the National Statistics Office, and the Local Civil Registrar, and on November 15, 2016 granted the petition ordering corrections to Entry No. 6 (change “MARY ANNABELE” to “ANNABELLE” and “PALINO” to “PELENO”) and Entry No. 18 (from “married” to “NOT MARRIED”), and directed the Local Civil Registrar to furnish the corrected birth certificate to the National Statistics Office.
The OSG moved for reconsideration, contending that the RTC lacked jurisdiction to order corrections of names that are clerical and thus remediable administratively under Republic Act No. 9048, as amended by RA No. 10172, and that the change in parental marital status w...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Did the RTC have jurisdiction to correct the entries in the birth certificate under Rule 108 when an administrative remedy under RA No. 9048 (as amended) exists?
- Are the corrections to Annabelle’s first name and middle name clerical (administratively correctible) or substantial?
- Was the change of the parents’ marital status from “married” to “NOT MARRIED” a substantial correction that required strict compliance with Rule 108’s implead...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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