The Office of the City Civil Registrar is responsible for the civil registration programs and services of the city. It is mandated to carry out the laws pertinent to civil registration such as the Civil Registration Law or Republic Act No. 3753, the Civil Code, and the Family Code and other Laws.

Civil Registration means the recording of facts and events affecting the civil status of persons. Primarily, it involves registration of births, deaths and marriages.

Civil Registration has become more complicated for the past several years. Several amendments in the provisions of the law have been passed which affect civil registration especially that of illegitimate children. For example, in the Civil Code, if the child is born illegitimate, he can carry the surname of his father as long as the latter recognizes him. When the Family Code is put into law on Aug. 3, 1988, it provides that illegitimate children shall carry the surname of the mother regardless if the child is recognized by the father or not. And so, if the child is born illegitimate, his surname will depend not only whether he is recognized or not but also, “kon san-o sya natawo,” or what law will apply to him be it the Family Code or the Civil Code.

Because of this somehow confusion on the giving of surname to illegitimate children, the Family Code was then amended by Republic Act No. 9255, entitled “Allowing the Illegitimate Children to Use the Surname of the Father.”

And so, the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of this law mandates the civil registrar to make proper annotations in the Birth Certificate of the child to the effect that the surname of the child shall be changed from that of the mother to that of the father born to minor parents can already be legitimated. This mandates again the civil registrar to make proper annotations on the Birth Certificate of the child after the proper procedures are followed and the requirements are applied with.

Another law I would consider very significant and helpful is Republic Act No. 9048 or the Clerical Error Law which is an amendment to Article 412 of the Civil Code. This law authorizes the civil registrar to correct clerical error or change the first name of the child in the civil register without need for judicial order. I say that this law is very helpful because before this law took effect, the correction of even one letter in the entry in the civil register will cost more or less P20,000.00 in order to get a court order. With R. A. No. 9048, filing fee is P1,000.00. Change of first name of the child in the Birth Certificate is also allowed through proper grounds, by the law. Filing fee is only P3,000.00.*