THE RIGHT MOVE
Rikki Mathay
You’ll be surprised with the thousands of cases handled by documentation lawyers just to correct a wrong entry in a legal document. The most common of these is corrections in “sex” found in birth certificates. There are those born male but registered female. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Helpline, wrongly ticked sex is just a clerical error that can be corrected by filing a petition for correction of gender at the Local Civil Registry (LCR) where the birth certificate is registered. This is according to law RA10172 that aims to correct entries in birth or marriage certificates and other documents without the appellants having to spend a lot. However, this does not seem to be the case with the thousands of pending appeals in queue.
According to Atty. Ariel Inton, a seasoned lawyer who handles family law and the correction of documents, thousands of Filipinos are troubled by what is, after all, supposedly a simple correction of data on the birth certificate.
In fact, recently, an OFW working in Spain, sought help from the media because of the ordeal she was going through because of the correction of gender on her birth certificate. Crystil Maturan revealed that even though she had meticulously gone through the required processes to correct the error, it still took years and thousands of pesos, before she saw any action taken to move forward with her appeal.
This case showed the substantial requirements and extra expenses to simply correct the gender on birth certificates. What exactly are the requirements?

- PSA copy of birth certificate with wrong gender entry
- PSA marriage certificate if married
- PSA birth certificates of the petitioner's children
- School records
- Medical records issued by an accredited physician that the petitioner has not undergone sex change or sex transplant
- No pending case certificate from PNP, NBI or employer
- Two valid IDs
- Affidavit of publication
- ₱3,000 fee