G.R. No. L-10869; November 28, 1958
ANDREW BLACK, ET. AL., petitioners-appellants, vs. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, oppositor-appellee.

FACTS

The petitioners-appellants filed a petition in the Court of First Instance of Manila to correct the birth certificate of their daughter, Marian Kathleen Black, who was born on April 15, 1955, in Manila. They sought to change the entry for her citizenship from “Canadian” to “American.” The Solicitor General, representing the oppositor-appellee Republic of the Philippines, moved to dismiss the petition. The motion argued that the requested correction would substantially affect the child’s citizenship, a matter that was still controversial, and therefore could not be allowed under Article 412 of the New Civil Code, which applies only to clerical mistakes. The lower court granted the motion to dismiss, prompting the petitioners’ appeal.

ISSUE

Whether the petition to correct the birth certificate by changing the citizenship entry from “Canadian” to “American” is a proper subject for correction under Article 412 of the New Civil Code, which is limited to clerical errors.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s order of dismissal. The Court held that the correction sought is not a clerical error as defined by law and jurisprudence. A clerical error is one that is visible to the eyes or obvious to the understanding, or an error made by a clerk or transcriber in copying or writing. In this case, there was no allegation that the entry of “Canadian” was due to an error by the civil registrar’s employee who made the entry. Furthermore, the error was not visible or obvious. Instead, the desired correction involves the controversial matter of citizenship, which must be resolved in an appropriate action and not through summary proceedings for correcting mistakes under Article 412 of the Civil Code. The order was affirmed with costs against the appellants.