CORRECTION OF ENTRIES (RA 9048 and RULE 108)

It must be stressed that RA9048 applies only to correction of clerical or typographical error in entry or in first name. If the correction is in the surname, it will not apply. If the correction is sex, age, birthplace, citizenship, it will not apply. If the change will involve change of legitimacy or citizenship, it will not apply.

There is no court proceedings in the application of RA9048. The petition will be filed in the Local Civil Registrar where the record is located or registered.

On the other hand, if the change is substantial including those on citizenship, legitimacy of paternity or filiation, or legitimacy of marriage, there is a need for adversarial proceeding and the petition must be filed in court under Rule 108.

Republic Act 9048

Republic Act (RA) 9048 authorizes the city or municipal civil registrar or the consul general to correct a clerical or typographical error in an entry and/or change the first name or nickname in the civil register without the need of a judicial order.

Ra 9048 amends Articles 376 and 412 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, which prohibit the change of name or surname of a person, or any correction or change of entry in a civil register without judicial order.

RA 9048 allows these corrections:

Correction of clerical or typographical errors in an entry in civil registry documents, except corrections involving the change in sex, age, nationality and status of a person

(A clerical or typographical error refers to an obvious mistake committed in clerical work, either in writing, copying, transcribing, or typing an entry in the civil register that is harmless and innocuous, such as a misspelled name or misspelled place of birth and the like, and can be corrected or changed only by reference to other existing record or records.)

Change of a person's first name in his/her civil registry document under certain grounds specified under the law through administrative process.

What are the conditions under RA 9048 that the petitioner needs to comply with?

1.       The petitioner finds the first name or nickname to be ridiculous, tainted with dishonor or extremely difficult to write or pronounce;

2.       The new first name or nickname has been habitually and continuously used by the petitioner and he has been publicly known by that first name or nickname in the community; or,

3.       The change will avoid confusion.

RULE 108

What entries may be subject to cancellation (section 2)?

Upon good and valid grounds, the following entries in the civil registry may be cancelled or corrected:

(a)    births

(b)   marriage

(c)    deaths

(d)   legal separations

(e)   judgments of annulments of marriage

(f)     judgments of declaring marriages void from the beginning

(g)    legitimations

(h)   adoptions

(i)      election, loss, recovery of citizenship

(j)     civil interdiction

(k)    judicial determination of filiation

(l)      change of name

The proceedings must be adversarial (Republic v. Julian Edward Emerson Coseteng-Magpayo, February 2, 2011). Appropriate adversary proceeding is one having opposing parties, contested as distinguished from ex parte application, one of which the party seeking relief has given legal warning to the other party and afforded the latter an opportunity to contest it.

Some Cases for Reference:

• ·         Julian denied the marriage of his parents and denies his legitimacy and filed a petition to change his name removing his father’s last name. The petition was denied since the change he seeks will affect his legal status in relation to his parents. “Changes that will affect the civil status from legitimate to illegitimate are substantial and controversial alterations which can only be answered after appropriate adversary proceedings (Labayo-Rowe v. Republic)”

• ·         Indeed, there are decided cases involving mistakes similar to Mercadera’s case which recognize the same a harmless error.  In Yu v. Republic, it was held that “to change ‘Sincio’ to ‘Sencio’ which merely involves the substitution of the first vowel ‘i’ in the first name into the vowel ‘e’ amounts merely to the righting of a clerical error.”  In Labayo-Rowe v. Republic,  it was held that the change of petitioner’s name from “Beatriz Labayo/Beatriz Labayu” to “Emperatriz Labayo” was a mere innocuous alteration wherein a summary proceeding was appropriate.  In Republic v. Court of Appeals, Jaime B. Caranto and Zenaida P. Caranto, the correction involved the substitution of the letters “ch” for the letter “d,” so that what appears as “Midael” as given name would read “Michael.”  In the latter case, this Court, with the agreement of the Solicitor General, ruled that the error was plainly clerical, such that, “changing the name of the child from ‘Midael C. Mazon’ to ‘Michael C. Mazon’ cannot possibly cause any confusion, because both names can be read and pronounced with the same rhyme (tugma) and tone (tono, tunog, himig).”

• ·         In this case, the use of the letter “a” for the letter “e,” and the deletion of the letter “i,” so that what appears as “Marilyn” would read as “Merlyn” is patently a rectification of a name that is clearly misspelled.  The similarity between “Marilyn” and “Merlyn” may well be the object of a mix- up that blemished Mercadera’s Certificate of Live Birth until her adulthood, thus, her interest to correct the same (Republic v. Merlyn Mercadera, December 8, 2010).