House committee okays bill to help parents give kids legitimate status

CEBU – A bill granting legitimate status to children born out of wedlock to parents who were either or both below 18 years of age at the time of their conception has been approved in the House Committee on Revision of Laws. Cebu 1st District Rep. Eduardo Gullas said House Bill 308, which he filed, will remove the stigma suffered by children born under such circumstances.

The bill amends Article 177 of the Family Code of the Philippines, which states “only children conceived and born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other, may be legitimated.”

Gullas said that the House Committee on Revision of Laws has reported out for floor deliberation a consolidated bill that seeks to allow children born to underage and unmarried couples to be legitimated.

Under the bill, if the impediment of the parents to marry each other was their failure to comply with the legal age requirement, then their children may still be legitimated through the parents’ subsequent legal marriage to each other, after both have reached the age of majority.

Entitled “An Act Providing for the Legitimation of Children Born to Parents Below Marrying Age, amending for the purpose the Family Code of the Philippines,” the bill is a consolidation of several separate measures - House Bill Nos. 2795, 102, 308, 614, 79, 936, 1593, 1863 and 3129.

Rep. Magtanggol T. Gunigundo I (2nd District, Valenzuela), a principal proponent of the bill, lauded the passage of the measure on the committee level, saying innocent children should not suffer for the sins of their parents.

“These children should not undergo the pain and stigma of an illegitimate status, nor the tedious and expensive process of adoption, when anyway their parents are going to legally marry each other after being initially prevented from doing so because of minority,” said Gunigundo, Chairman of the House Committee on Labor and Employment. Gullas said the provision should be amended for the simple reason that “young couples who were prohibited from marrying each other due to their being underage, but still got married when they reached the legal age, should be commended.”

The present law also provides that a child born to any or both parents below 18 years old can never be made legitimate.

Gullas said the only way to put the child in the same status as a legitimate child is through adoption, which he described as very tedious and costly process.

Gullas said that it requires length of time before the legitimate status is achieved.

“Due to the long process of adoption, both the parents and the children undergoing it suffer long agony and the longer the time, the longer the stigma of being branded as illegitimate child remains,” Gullas said.

Authors also include of the bill were Reps. Juan Edgardo Angara, Abraham Khalil Mitra, Cynthia Villar, Reno Lim, Liza Maza, Ignacio Arroyo, Trinidad Apostol, Roberto Cajes, Marcelino Teodoro, Edgardo Chatto, Raul Gonzalez, Jr., Giorgidi Aggabao, Elpidio Barzaga, Joseph Gilbert Violago, Arturo Robes, Satur Ocampo, Jose Carlos Lacson and Rolando Uy. — Garry B. Lao/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)