The House Committee on Welfare of Children has formed a technical working group (TWG) that will consolidate the more than a dozen measures seeking to codify the country’s laws on alternative child care and simplify the process of adopting abandoned and neglected children in the country.
The House panel, chaired by Tingog Sinirangan partylist Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez, gave in to the motion made by Bukidnon 1st District Rep. Ma. Lourdes Acosta-Alba seeking the creation of a TWG to flesh out the measures seeking to create the country’s "Alternative Child Care Code.”
“Hopefully, we can convene it ASAP (as soon as possible) since we are all in agreement that this long-overdue legislation is quite urgent. Actually, we filed this bill in the 17th Congress, hanggang TWG lang umabot (it only reached the TWG level). Hopefully, this time it will go all the way,” Acosta-Alba said during the committee’s recent virtual meeting, presided by Misamis Occidental 1st District Rep. Diego “Nonoy” Ty.
Ty requested Nueva Ecija 3rd District Rep. Rosanna “Ria” Vergara to head the TWG which is tasked to come up with a substitute measure on ACC bills.
“It is an honor to chair this TWG. We will do our best to get this bill reviewed thoroughly, and hopefully, get it to second reading and passed in this 18th Congress,” Vergara said.
In her sponsorship speech, Romualdez said her House Bill No. 5581 seeks to address the plight of more than 1.8 million abandoned or neglected children in the country, who are victims of extreme poverty, natural disasters or of armed conflicts.
"As a result, these children have been placed under institutional care to ensure their growth and well-being. While these institutions have done so much with limited resources to care for these children, the fact remains that they cannot replace the warmth and affection that a family could provide,” she said.
"With the intention of providing abandoned and neglected children a second chance at having the family care and love that they deserve, this bill seeks to harmonize our existing laws involving the adoption of children, including a simplified, accessible, and streamlined procedure for adoption, foster care, and other modes of alternative child care,” Romualdez said.
She said her bill also seeks to establish a one- stop agency called the National Authority for Child Care (NACC) for the adoption of children, and "to make the adoption process administrative in nature."
Quezon City 2nd District Rep. Precious Hipolito-Castelo and Bataan 1st District Rep. Geraldine Roman also cited the need for Congress to step and address the country’s “harsh,” “expensive,” “long,” and “emotionally” draining adoption bureaucracy.
“As we all know, it is very difficult to legally adopt here in the Philippines because of the lengthy process involved in litigating the adoption case. Thus, it is the intent of this bill, among others, to make adoption more accessible to aspiring adoptive parents by making the adoption procedure administrative in nature,” Castelo said in pushing for the passage of her House Bill No. 6160.
Like Romualdez’s HB 5581, Castelo’s HB 6160 calls for the creation of the NACC, which seeks to improve and expedite the process of all modes of alternative child care.
The NACC, which shall be an attached agency of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), is tasked to formulate and develop policies on pre-adoption, adoption, inter-country adoption, foster care, guardianship leading to adoption, and other alternative child care policies, she said.
Roman also took the opportunity to ask her colleagues to rally behind the passage of House Bill No. 6265, which seeks to address the “tedious, expensive, extremely bureaucratic” adoption process as coined by her Spanish couple-friend who adopted two Filipino children.
"The entire process took more than two years and this was with the intervention of my late father, former Rep. Tony Roman. Now these two kids are in their early twenties, finishing their college degrees in Spain,” she said.
"The requirements, they said, seemed arbitrary and were not systematically conveyed to them. The fees would include tips and other amounts which they thought were bribes to fast track the process. This is inadmissible. The process of adoption is, for the State, the fulfilment of its mandate. For government employees and officials, adoption cannot be a money-making venture. This is the objective of HB 6265,” the House leader said.
She said aside from ensuring that that the entire adoption process is efficient, transparent, and reasonable, her bill seeks to streamline the entire process and allows the review and fine-tuning of existing procedures and requirements.
"The bill also seeks to align our local policies with international conventions particularly in considering alternative families as adoptive parents where legal impediments do not exist,” she added.