Rigid reading on foundling cases may lead to dire results —Sereno

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on Tuesday said that justices have to be "careful" in reading laws and decisions pertaining to adoption and status of foundlings as it may come with "unintended consequences" on policies that apply to children of unknown biological parents.

Sereno capped the second round of interpellation on the case of Senator Grace Poe, who is seeking to overturn two rulings that cancelled her certificate of candidacy on ground of false representation regarding her citizenship and residency.

Poe, a foundling, maintains that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen. The rulings of the Commission on Elections' First and Second Divisions on a total of four petitions—which were upheld by the en banc—say she is not.

At the end of questioning Poe's lawyer Alexander Poblador, Sereno said, "We have to be careful that we are not—by a rigid reading of what we consider as failure to enumerate foundlings—we are going to create unintended consequences, the difficulty of which are not perhaps just to be visited on your client, but on so many foundlings in the country."

During the interpellation, the chief justice pointed to several laws and court decisions, notably Article XV of the Civil Code, R.A. 8552 (Domestic Adoption Act of 1998), and Ching Leng v. Galang, where the Supreme Court ruled that adoption does not automatically confer citizenship on the adoptee.

She eventually went on to ask Poblador, "If the court makes a conclusion against foundlings who are being adopted, what do you think will be the possible policy implications that will result in the desirability of adopting foundlings vis-a-vis adopting those with known parents?"

The lawyer replied, "No one will adopt foundlings because of the possibility that the decree of adoption can be challenged on the ground of lack of jurisdiction in the court."

This, Poblador said, may lead to foundlings remaining "in orphanages and public institutions," as well as to an increase of "simulation of births."

Sereno then said that the foundling "will be discriminated against" with the registration paper becoming a "disincentive."

"Is that a situation that the Constitution envisions that should result from our decision?" she asked.

Poblador replied, "I don't think so, Your Honor."

Sereno then pointed out there "more and more parents" are looking to adopt these days, "and many times they don't understand the kind of legal problems they are going to encounter."

"What this court is going to say will speak to them. They will make the decision matrix depending on how we view our Constitutional duty to be—whether we find it strictly by saying that the language is silent, so the rights of foundlings are completely silent, or it will go through a situation where it will result to interpretation in accordance with not only statutory construction, but also judicial interpretation, and also administrative practices in order that a just a right ruling will result," she said.

Sereno added: "We want to be elaborated on that because the implication of this case is very profound, not only for your client—actually, we can put a blinder on who your client is and focus on the implication of foundlings rights, who are being required by the position of petitioners to prove an impossible condition." -NB, GMA News