GR 132980; (March, 1999) (Digest)
G.R. No. 132980 March 25, 1999
Republic of the Philippines vs. Gladys C. Labrador
FACTS
Respondent Gladys C. Labrador filed a petition under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court for the correction of entries in the birth certificate of her niece, Sarah Zita Cañon Erasmo. She alleged that the child, born in 1988, was illegitimate, being the offspring of her sister Maria Rosario Cañon and Degoberto Erasmo who were not married. The petition sought to change the child’s surname from “Erasmo” to “Cañon” pursuant to Article 176 of the Family Code, and to correct the mother’s first name from “Rosemarie” to “Maria Rosario.” The Regional Trial Court of Cebu granted the petition after a summary proceeding where notice was published and the public prosecutor participated. The Republic, through the Solicitor General, appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
ISSUE
Whether a petition for correction of entries under Rule 108, a summary proceeding, is the proper remedy to effect substantial changes in a birth certificate affecting the civil status and filiation of a person.
RULING
No. The Supreme Court granted the petition and annulled the RTC decision. The Court held that Rule 108 and the related provision in the Civil Code (Article 412) are summary proceedings intended only for the correction of clerical, spelling, typographical, or other innocuous errors in the civil registry. These are errors that are visible to the eye or obvious from the record, requiring no exercise of judicial discretion or evidentiary adjudication of contentious facts.
The changes sought in this case—altering the child’s surname from the father’s to the mother’s and thereby effectively changing the child’s status from legitimate to illegitimate—are substantial and contentious. They affect the filiation and legitimacy of the child, which are vested rights. Allowing such changes in a summary proceeding would violate due process, as it would adjudicate these rights without affording all indispensable and interested parties, including the child and the presumed father, an opportunity to be heard in an adversarial setting. The proper recourse for such substantial alterations is an adversarial action, such as an ordinary civil action or a special proceeding where all parties are duly impleaded and the issues are fully litigated. The RTC therefore erred in granting the petition under a summary proceeding.