Barangay Health Workers (BHW) Party-list Rep. Angelica Natasha Co, chair of the House Committee on Welfare of Children, urged her colleagues to work together in support of proposed measures that aim to strengthen the laws surrounding child support by making refusal and negligence to pay child support criminal.
During the initial deliberation on the proposed Child Support Responsibility Act bills on Monday, Feb. 6, the lawmaker stressed the right of the child to be supported by the parents.
“The measures subject for deliberation remind everyone of the unending moral and legal obligation of the non-custodial parent to provide support to the child,” Co said in her opening remarks.
A non-custodial parent refers to the parent who does not have physical custody of the child or children.
“My dear colleagues, as parens patriae, I now enjoin you to protect the children by strengthening the laws and ensuring that they still get the possible care, notwithstanding the severed relationship of their parents,” the lawmaker said.
“After all, it is a declared policy of the state to defend the right of the children to assistance, including proper care and nutrition, and special protection from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation, and other conditions prejudicial to their development,” she added.
Co also reminded her colleagues that the Philippines ratified in June 2022 the Child Support Convention, or formally known as the “Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance," at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in The Hague.
The deliberation led to the creation of a Technical Working Group (TWG) to be headed by Northern Samar 1st District Rep. Paul Ruiz Daza, the author of one of the proposed bills that were deliberated on.
Daza’s House Bill (HB) No. 44, entitled “An Act Ensuring Child Support and Penalizing Parental Refusal or Neglect Thereof”, “will have more teeth than any other similar existing or proposed law” as it imposes criminal liability on the non-custodial parent who refuses to pay child support.
Other bills that are to be consolidated are: HB No. 4798, or “An Act Ensuring Child Support and Penalizing Parental Refusal Or Neglect Thereof”, by Rep. Patrick Michael “PM” Vargas; HB No. 4807, or “An Act Ensuring Child Support and Penalizing Parental Refusal Or Neglect Thereof”, by Reps. Paolo Duterte, Eric Go Yap, Edvic Yap, and Jeffrey Soriano; and HB No. 5093, or “An Act Punishing the Willful Failure to Pay Child Support”, by Rep. Gus Tambunting.