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REQUESTED by Bantay Bata 163 Program Director Tina Monzon-Palma to
attend a Congressional hearing at the House of Representatives, it
was certainly heartwarming to realize that Filipino congressmen are
now inviting resource persons and child law experts from the
non-government sector, whose experiences far outweigh the limited,
often narrow-minded, perspectives of government and judicial
officials charged with improving legislation and policies on
children.
In a democratic society, it should be very clear
that no government office possesses a monopoly of knowledge
regarding international legal trends on family and child law and the
proper nurturance of children. Thus, they should listen with open
minds to those who actually nurture children and should pattern
legislation on the proposals of these noble caregivers, who
sacrifice their lives, energies and resources for abandoned children
found on streets, under bridges and train stations, in slum areas
and along esteros, without depending on any single financial
contribution from government coffers. These heroic caregivers
deserve more respect from arrogant government and judicial officials
as they have been traditionally totally ignored from their just and
rightful democratic participation in the crafting of legislation and
judicial policies involving children.
Representative Jose Carlos Lacson’s House Bill
is pushing for a paradigm shift from a judicial to an administrative
process on the declaration of child abandonment. Then, the child
becomes legally available for adoption. With valuable insights of
Kaisahang Buhay Foundation Director Cherry de la Rosa and Parenting
Foundation Director Ma. Paz de Guzman, the bill was immediately
approved. With a Justice Committee Report, it is hoped that the bill
shall sail smoothly from its Second into Third Hearing for its
expeditious approval, after which it will be calendared for its
integration with the Senate version filed by Senator Aquilino
Pimentel Jr. at the Bicameral Conference Committee. Although the
bill is deemed highly commendable, some issues seek clarification.
One issue raised is the requirement of fees for
the filing of administrative petitions before the DSWD Regional
Director. Albeit the exemption of fees by indigent petitioners, who
really are petitioners in abandonment proceedings and who are
expected to pay these fees? Is it the child, who may still be an
infant or toddler, who has certainly no financial capabilities? Is
it their parents, who have abandoned them and have abandoned them
precisely because they are impoverished and have no financial
capacity to further care for, and provide, the needs of their
children? Is it the social workers from government institutions, who
get their limited and minimal budget from the budget approved by
Congress and from which they do not receive any subsidies or
development fund for this purpose?
Or is it the social workers from non-government
organizations, who are already spending for the shelter, education,
transportation, books, clothing, care, support and sustenance of
these abandoned children and are dependent on donations from
charitable people? Who does Congress want to further penalize with
payment of fees when social workers from government and
non-government organizations have no money for these fees and are
already sacrificing their time and resources in the care of these
children? In other words, fees should already be waived and should
not constitute a deterrent to the filing of petitions in meritorious
cases of abandonment. In addition, the DSWD should, in fact, issue
another certification, this time a certificate of appreciation to
the social worker that files the petition rather than further saddle
these heroic caregivers with further financial burdens.
Another issue involves the gestation period of
three months in a voluntary commitment and the compliance periods
before a child could actually be declared legally available for
adoption. When circumstances are so obvious, bureaucratic processes
and gestation periods should already be left to DSWD discretion. In
incest cases, infants are almost absolutely abandoned by their minor
mothers, who are twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old children
impregnated by their own fathers, grandfathers, and incestuous male
relatives.
Or in cases wherein the children have special
medical needs like cerebral palsy, heart or kidney ailments,
blindness, or ADHD, or the children are already old and their
“adoptability” is nearing zero possibilities, should there still
be gestation periods of three months or should there still be
bureaucratic processes with unnecessary periods, which may impede
the needed expeditious treatment of these cases? While awaiting
gestation periods and bureaucratic procedures, the children are
languishing in streets, in orphanages, in prison-like reception
centers, oftentimes under the most inhumane living conditions. Thus,
procedural or gestation periods should just be left to DSWD
discretion in Implementing Rules and Regulations, rather than
requiring mandatory periods in the organic law. In addition, both
Houses of Congress should already contemplate transforming the whole
adoption process into an administrative albeit quasi-judicial
mechanism rather than depend on an adversarial, contentious,
litigious, burdensome, unfriendly, traumatizing judicial process,
which oftentimes forgets that children are human beings who deserve
love and nurturance.
ericfmallonga@yahoo.com
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