Proving filiation (3)

Our laws instruct that the child's welfare shall be the "paramount consideration" in resolving questions affecting him. Article 3 (1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child, of which the Philippines is a signatory, is similarly emphatic:

Article 3 (1) states, "In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities, or legislative bodies, the child's best interests shall be a primary consideration."

"It is thus '(t)he policy of the Family Code to liberalize the rule on the investigation of the paternity and filiation of children, especially of illegitimate children x x x." Too, "(t)he State as parens patriae affords special protection to children from abuse, exploitation, and other conditions prejudicial to their development."

"This case should not have been so difficult for the petitioner if only he obtained a copy of his Certificate of Live Birth from the National Statistics Office or NSO since the Bacolod City Civil Registry copy thereof was destroyed. He would not have had to go through the trouble of presenting other documentary evidence; the NSO copy would have sufficed. This fact is not lost on the petitioner; the Certification dated 27 January 1996, issued by the Bacolod City Civil Registry (Exhibit 'Q'), contained just such advice for the petitioner to proceed to the Office of the Civil Registrar General at the NSO in Manila to secure a copy of his Certificate of Live Birth, since for every registered birth in the country, a copy of the Certificate of Live Birth is submitted to said office."

"As to the petitioner's argument that the respondent has no personality to impugn his legitimacy and cannot collaterally attack his legitimacy and that the action to impugn his legitimacy has already been prescribed pursuant to Articles 170 and 171 of the Family Code, the Court has held before that — Article 263 refers to an action to impugn the legitimacy of a child, to assert and prove that a person is not a man's child by his wife.

"However, the present case is not one impugning the petitioner's legitimacy. Respondents are asserting not merely that the petitioner is not a legitimate child of Jose but that she is not a child of Jose at all.

Article 263 refers to an action to impugn the legitimacy of a child, to assert and prove that a person is not a man's child by his wife.

"Finally, if the petitioner has shown that he is the legitimate issue of the Aguilar spouses, then he is heir to the latter's estate. Respondent is then left with no right to inherit from her aunt Candelaria Siasat-Aguilar's estate since succession pertains, in the first place, to the descending direct line."

The facts and quoted salient portion of the decision are from Rodolfo S. Aguilar v. Edna G. Siasat (G.R. 200169, 28 January 2015).