Substantial correction

The validity of marriages as well as the legitimacy and filiation of children can be questioned only in a direct action seasonably filed by the proper party and not through a collateral attack. This is the ruling in this case of Maricris.

Maricris married Lito on January 4, 1978. Their union bore three children: Paul, born on May 8, 1978, Carlo, born on June 4, 1980 and Janet born on June 7, 1983. After 25 years of marriage, during which Lito worked and traveled abroad, Lito died in a vehicular accident in Indonesia.

Following the repatriation of Lito’s remains to the Philippines, one of those who went to his wake was Lucy with a boy named Nino in tow whom she began introducing as her and Lito’s son.

This prompted Maricris to make inquiries and later on found out that in Nino’s birth certificate he was born on January 1, 1996 with Lucy listed as the mother and Lito as the father, and that the boy was acknowledged by Lito as his son on January 13, 1996 and then legitimated by virtue of the subsequent marriage of the parents (Lucy and Lito) on April 22, 1998. So Maricris also obtained a marriage contract showing that Lito and Lucy were indeed married on April 22, 1998.

Hence on December 23, 2005, Maricris together with her children Paul and Janet filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) a petition against Lucy and the guardians of Nino, to correct the entries in Nino’s birth record with the local civil registrar under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court. Maricris contended that Nino could not have been legitimated by the supposed marriage between Lito and Lucy because the same is bigamous since Lito was still married to her. She thus prayed for: (1) the correction of entries in Nino’s birth record with respect to his legitimation, the name of the father and his acknowledgment and use of the father’s surname; (2) a directive to Lucy and the guardians of Nino to submit the latter to DNA testing to determine his paternity and filiation; (3) the declaration of nullity of the legitimation of Nino, and for this purpose, for a declaration of the nullity of Lucy and Lito’s marriage on the ground that it is bigamous.

In an order dated September 6, 2007, the RTC however dismissed the petition holding that in a special proceeding for the correction of entry, it is not acting as a Family Court under the Family Code and therefore has no jurisdiction over the petition to annul the marriage of Lito and Lucy, to impugn the legitimacy of Nino and order his DNA testing. Hence, the RTC said that the controversy should be ventilated in an ordinary adversarial action.

Lucy and her children however maintained that their main cause of action is for the correction of entries in Nino’s birth records and that in doing so the court can pass upon the validity of the marriage and questions on legitimacy which are merely incidental thereto. Were they correct?

No. In a special proceeding for correction of entries in the original registry under Rule 108, the trial court has no jurisdiction to nullify marriages and rule on the legitimacy and filiation. The proceeding contemplated in said rule may generally be used only to correct clerical, spelling, typographical and other innocuous error in the civil registry. A clerical error is one which is visible to the eyes or obvious to the understanding, an error made by a clerk or a transcriber, a mistake in copying or writing; or a harmless change such as a correction of name that is clearly misspelled or of a statement of the occupation of the parent. Substantial or contentious alterations may be allowed only in adversarial proceedings, in which all interested parties are impleaded and due process is properly served.

In this case, Maricris and her children seek to declare as void the marriage of Lito and Lucy for being bigamous and impugn Nino’s filiation in connection with which they also ask the Court that Nino be subjected to DNA test. These causes of action are governed not by Rule 108 but by A.M. No. 02-11-10-SC which took effect on March 15, 2003 and Article 171 of the FC respectively; hence the petition should be filed in a Family Court (Torres et.al, vs. City Civil Registrar of Himamaylan, Negros Occidental et. al, G.R. 181174, December 4, 2009).

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