DILG urges LGUs to help promote legal adoption, foster care

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has tapped local government units (LGUs) for help in identifying potential families as prospective adoptive or foster parents for children eligible for adoption.

In a memorandum circular, Interior Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento urged provincial governors, city and municipal mayors, and punong barangays to establish a system that will pinpoint families who could adopt children, either in a temporary capacity as foster parents, or in a permanent role as their adoptive parents.

The circular likewise calls on LGUs to assist in determining eligible children for foster care or adoption by ensuring that all surrendered, neglected and/or abandoned children in their locality be assessed and declared legally available for adoption by the Local Social Welfare and Development Office (LSWDO) before placement for adoption.

Children who are in the care of “unauthorized individuals,” meanwhile, should be reported to authorities, the DILG said.

As a way of promoting legal adoption, foster care and other alternative family care, Sarmiento also encouraged LGUs to facilitate and expedite the posting of requirements by their respective LSWDO and comply with the requirements of laws, policies and issuances on child care and placement and protection.

He said legal adoption should be promoted as a way of protecting children's rights.

"Isang batas dito sa bansa na protektahan at palakasin ang pamilya, kaya nararapat lamang na siguraduhing ang bawat bata ay mabigyan ng pagkakataon na magkaroon ng seguridad, pagkilala sa sarili, at maging komportable bilang isang kasapi ng pamilya," he said.

Article 20 Section 3 of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that "State Parties shall, in accordance with their national laws, ensure alternative care for orphaned and neglected children.

Presidential Decree No. 603, Article 3 also provides that "The state upholds the right of every child to a wholesome family life that will provide him/her with love, care, understanding, guidance and counseling, and moral and material security, [and that] in cases, however, of a dependent or abandoned child, he will be provided with the nearest substitute to a home. — Xianne Arcangel/BM, GMA News