Abandonment of children
| Monday, May 19, 2008 | ||
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In a democratic society, it should be very clear that no government office possesses a monopoly of knowledge regarding international legal trends on family and child law and the proper nurturance of children. Thus, they should listen with open minds to those who actually nurture children and should pattern legislation on the proposals of these noble caregivers, who sacrifice their lives, energies and resources for abandoned children found on streets, under bridges and train stations, in slum areas and along esteros, without depending on any single financial contribution from government coffers. These heroic caregivers deserve more respect from arrogant government and judicial officials as they have been traditionally totally ignored from their just and rightful democratic participation in the crafting of legislation and judicial policies involving children. Representative Jose Carlos Lacson’s House Bill is pushing for a paradigm shift from a judicial to an administrative process on the declaration of child abandonment. Then, the child becomes legally available for adoption. With valuable insights of Kaisahang Buhay Foundation Director Cherry de la Rosa and Parenting Foundation Director Ma. Paz de Guzman, the bill was immediately approved. With a Justice Committee Report, it is hoped that the bill shall sail smoothly from its Second into Third Hearing for its expeditious approval, after which it will be calendared for its integration with the Senate version filed by Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. at the Bicameral Conference Committee. Although the bill is deemed highly commendable, some issues seek clarification. One issue raised is the requirement of fees for the filing of administrative petitions before the DSWD Regional Director. Albeit the exemption of fees by indigent petitioners, who really are petitioners in abandonment proceedings and who are expected to pay these fees? Is it the child, who may still be an infant or toddler, who has certainly no financial capabilities? Is it their parents, who have abandoned them and have abandoned them precisely because they are impoverished and have no financial capacity to further care for, and provide, the needs of their children? Is it the social workers from government institutions, who get their limited and minimal budget from the budget approved by Congress and from which they do not receive any subsidies or development fund for this purpose? Or is it the social workers from non-government organizations, who are already spending for the shelter, education, transportation, books, clothing, care, support and sustenance of these abandoned children and are dependent on donations from charitable people? Who does Congress want to further penalize with payment of fees when social workers from government and non-government organizations have no money for these fees and are already sacrificing their time and resources in the care of these children? In other words, fees should already be waived and should not constitute a deterrent to the filing of petitions in meritorious cases of abandonment. In addition, the DSWD should, in fact, issue another certification, this time a certificate of appreciation to the social worker that files the petition rather than further saddle these heroic caregivers with further financial burdens. Another issue involves the gestation period of three months in a voluntary commitment and the compliance periods before a child could actually be declared legally available for adoption. When circumstances are so obvious, bureaucratic processes and gestation periods should already be left to DSWD discretion. In incest cases, infants are almost absolutely abandoned by their minor mothers, who are twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old children impregnated by their own fathers, grandfathers, and incestuous male relatives. Or in cases wherein the children have special medical needs like cerebral palsy, heart or kidney ailments, blindness, or ADHD, or the children are already old and their “adoptability” is nearing zero possibilities, should there still be gestation periods of three months or should there still be bureaucratic processes with unnecessary periods, which may impede the needed expeditious treatment of these cases? While awaiting gestation periods and bureaucratic procedures, the children are languishing in streets, in orphanages, in prison-like reception centers, oftentimes under the most inhumane living conditions. Thus, procedural or gestation periods should just be left to DSWD discretion in Implementing Rules and Regulations, rather than requiring mandatory periods in the organic law. In addition, both Houses of Congress should already contemplate transforming the whole adoption process into an administrative albeit quasi-judicial mechanism rather than depend on an adversarial, contentious, litigious, burdensome, unfriendly, traumatizing judicial process, which oftentimes forgets that children are human beings who deserve love and nurturance. |
