GR L 36478; (April, 1983) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-36478 April 29, 1983
CESAR YU and DRA. MAPALAD CRUZ-YU, petitioners-appellants, vs. THE CIVIL REGISTRAR OF MANILA, oppositor-appellee.
FACTS
Petitioners Cesar Yu and his mother, Mapalad Cruz, filed a petition with the Court of First Instance of Rizal seeking the correction of entries in the Civil Registry of Manila. They alleged that upon the birth of Cesar on April 2, 1943, the attending physician erroneously recorded his surname as “Young” and his father’s surname as “Aproniano Young” instead of the correct “Yu.” The petitioners attributed this error to a mistake by the person who supplied the information to the Local Civil Registrar.
The trial court dismissed the petition. It found that the civil registry to be corrected was located in Manila, yet the Civil Registrar of Manila had not been made a party to the proceedings as required by Sections 1 and 3 of Rule 108 of the Rules of Court. The petitioners appealed, arguing that the summary proceeding under Article 412 of the Civil Code should apply, which does not require the civil registrar to be specifically named as a party and allows the case to be filed in the petitioner’s residence.
ISSUE
Whether the petition for correction of the surname from “Young” to “Yu” is a clerical error correctible under the summary proceeding of Article 412 of the Civil Code, or a substantial change requiring an adversarial proceeding under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal, ruling that the correction sought is substantial and must proceed under Rule 108. Article 412 of the Civil Code permits only the correction of clerical errors—those visible to the eye or obvious to the understanding, such as harmless misspellings or innocuous misstatements. The Court cited precedents like Ty Kong Tin vs. Republic and Ansaldo vs. Republic, which distinguish clerical from substantial errors.
The change from “Young” to “Yu” is not merely clerical; it affects the identity and civil status of the individuals involved. A surname is a fundamental component of personal identity. Consequently, such a substantial alteration can only be made in a proper adversarial proceeding where all interested parties are notified and heard. Rule 108 explicitly requires the petition to be filed in the Court of First Instance of the province where the civil register is located and mandates that the civil registrar and all persons with a potentially affected interest be made parties. The petitioners’ failure to comply with these jurisdictional requirements justified the dismissal. The Court emphasized that allowing substantial corrections through a summary proceeding would jeopardize the integrity of public documents like the civil register and open the door to fraud.