Mistaken move

Can the issue of the validity of marriage and the legitimacy and filiation of a child be resolved in a petition for correction of entries in the civil registry? This is the question raised in this case of Maricel.

Maricel married June on March 4, 1978. During their marriage, they begot three children: Johny, James and Janella. After 25 years of marriage, June died in a vehicular accident while traveling abroad.

When his remains were brought back here, one of those who went to his wake was a woman with a boy in tow. She introduced herself as Leni and the boy as Julio. Leni told Maricel that Julio was the son of June.

After the wake and the burial, Maricel immediately verified Leni’s claim by inquiring into Julio’s record of birth. She indeed found out that Julio was born on Jan. 1, 1996 with Leni listed as the mother and June as the father, and that the boy was acknowledged by June as his son on Jan. 13, 1996 and then legitimated by virtue of the subsequent marriage of Leni and June on April 22, 1998 as confirmed by a copy of the marriage contract which she also obtained.

Hence on Dec. 23, 2005, Maricel and her children Johny and Janella, who were already of legal age, filed before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) a petition against Leni and the guardians of Julio, to correct the entries in Julio’s birth record with the local civil registrar under Rule 108 of the Rules of Court.

Maricel contended that Julio could not have been legitimated by the supposed marriage between June and Leni because the same was bigamous since June was still married to her. She thus prayed for: (1) the correction of entries in Julio’s birth record with respect to his legitimation, his father’s name, his acknowledgment and his use of June’s surname; (2) a directive to Leni and the guardians of Julio to submit the latter to DNA testing so as to determine his paternity and filiation and (3) the declaration of nullity of Julio’s legitimation and of June and Leni’s marriage on the ground that it is bigamous.

In an order dated Sept. 6, 2007, the RTC 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 June and Leni, to impugn the legitimacy of Julio and order his DNA testing. Hence, the RTC said that the controversy should be ventilated in an ordinary adversarial action.

Maricel and her children, however, maintained that their main cause of action is for the correction of entries in Julio’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 civil registry under Rule 108, the trial court has no jurisdiction to nullify marriages and rule on the legitimacy and filiation of a child. The proceeding contemplated in said rule may generally be used only to correct clerical, spelling, typographical and other innocuous error. 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, Maricel and her children seek to declare as void the marriage of June and Leni for being bigamous and impugn Julio’s filiation in connection with which they also ask the Court that Julio undergo DNA test. These causes of action are not governed by Rule 108. They can be questioned only in a direct action seasonably filed by the proper party and not through a collateral attack such as this petition filed by Maricel and her children. They are governed 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. (This is the ruling in the case of Barza et.al, vs. City Civil Registrar of Himamaylan, Negros Occidental et. al, G.R. 181174, Dec. 4, 2009).