Cases involving adoption of children are now administrative instead of judicial proceedings and should be filed before the National Authority for Child Care (NACC) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and not with the trial courts.

Adoption cases now pending before the trial courts should be withdrawn first before they can be transferred to NACC for resolution, the Supreme Court (SC) said.

The new rule on domestic adoption cases was issued by the SC after the enactment of Republic Act No. 11642, the Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act, which took effect last Jan. 28.

RA 11642 was enacted to make domestic adoption proceedings simpler and less costly, and to streamline alternative child care services.

As summarized by the SC’s public information office (PIO), the salient features of the guidelines are:

”Upon effectivity of RA 11642, courts may no longer receive or accept petitions for domestic adoption. Jurisdiction over domestic adoption cases shall now be with the newly created NACC, a quasi-judicial agency attached to DSWD.

“Adoptions proceedings are now administrative.

“Petitioners have the option to immediately withdraw judicial petitions for domestic adoption pending in court, regardless of the stage of the proceedings. Otherwise, the courts shall continue to hear and decide such petitions.

“The courts shall give petitioners time to manifest their intent to withdraw. If petitioners fail to notify the court within the set period, they are considered to have waived the option to withdraw their petitions.

“Petitioners, and their respective counsels, who avail of the benefits of RA 11642 without first withdrawing their pending petitions before the courts shall be sanctioned under the Rules of Court.

“Domestic adoption provisions in the Rule on Adoption are now rendered ineffective except for pending domestic cases before the courts not withdrawn by petitioners.

“Rescission of adoption under Section 47 of RA 11642 covers judicial adoptions.

“Inter-country adoption petitions pending before the courts pursuant to Part B of the Rule on Adoption shall be dismissed.

“All courts are required to submit to the Office of the Court Administrator a list and status report of all pending adoption cases, including archived cases.”