Senate OKs bill protecting rights, welfare of foundlings on 3rd reading

The Senate has approved on third and final reading the bill that seeks to increase the protection and the rights and welfare of deserted and abadoned children.

Senate Bill No. 2233, or the proposed Foundling Recognition and Protection Act, was approved unanimously by the members of the Upper Chamber.

“Masaya ako na sa nalalabing session days ay nabigyang-pansin na i-angat ang karapatan at kapakanan ng mga batang inabandona (I’m happy that the Senate chose to fast track the bill promoting the rights and the welfare of abandoned children during the remaining session days). They were once lost. Now, they are found,” Senator Risa Hontiveros, author and sponsor of the measure, said during the Senate’s hybrid plenary session.

“I laud the Senate's commitment to ensure that these children are rescued from the risk of statelessness and to finally establish their identity,” she further said.

“The utmost motivation of this bill is the best interest of the child. Not only do these children were deprived of a family, they were also deprived to a name, nationality and access to government programs and services. This is the gap that we are trying to fill in,” added Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality.

Once signed into law, a foundling who is found in the Philippines or the country’s embassies, consulates, and territories shall be presumed a natural-born Filipino citizen, granting him or her the rights and protection under Philippine laws at the moment of birth.

The bill also seeks to establish the right of a foundling to government programs and services, such as registration, facilitation of documents for adoption, education, protection, nourishment, care, among others.

The measure also carries the concept of a “safe haven” that aims to protect infants from further harm when their biological parents leave them in unsafe places.

“Maraming mga sanggol ang mas mapapahamak pa dahil iniwan lang sa basurahan o sa public comfort room (There are babies who are harmed because they are left in garbage or a public comfort room),” Hontiveros pointed out.

“The act of parents should not be prejudicial to the welfare of the child. The parents will be given immunity from lawsuit when he or she hands over an infant thirty (30) days old and younger to ‘safe haven’ institutions such as licensed child care or placing agency, health care facilities or DSWD residential care centers,” she stressed.