Senate approves bill seeking to expedite adoption process

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate on Wednesday approved on second reading a measure seeking to fast-track and lower the cost of the adoption process in the country.

Senate Bill No. 1933 or the Domestic Administrative Adoption Act, sponsored by Sen. Risa Hontiveros who chairs the committee on women, is now one step away from being passed in the upper chamber. 

If the bill is enacted, domestic adoptions will be permitted through an administrative process within the Department of Social Welfare and Development, eliminating what Hontiveros and other proponents of the bill have called the time-consuming and grueling procedure of judicial adoption. 

Along with Hontiveros, Sens. Nancy Binay, Pia Cayetano, Franklin Drilon, Leila de Lima, Christopher Go, Francis Pangilinan, Ralph Recto, Grace Poe, Bong Revilla Jr., Joel Villanueva and Juan Miguel Zubiri are co-authors of the bill. 

Hontiveros in a statement released last December 2020 noted that the current adoption process discourages parents from undergoing the legal process of adopting a child, citing DWSD figures which showed that only 2,000 children were placed for adoption from 2010-2018. 

She said that 60% of adoption cases are completed within one to three years which could mean higher costs for parents that reach hundreds of thousands of pesos. 

"This situation pushes individuals to circumvent the law and forces them to undertake informal adoptions that put the welfare of both adopted child and adoptive parents at risk as it provides little to no legal protection at all," Hontiveros said. 

A counterpart measure, House Bill No. 8998 or the Domestic Adoption Act, was approved by the lower house and transmitted to the Senate in July.