CA denies DNA petition over dispute on Wenn Deramas' estate

The Court of Appeals (CA) has denied the petition filed by the sister and relatives of the late film director Wenn Deramas to submit his children, Gabriel and Raphaella, to DNA tests amid a property dispute.

In a decision dated September 8, the CA 15th Division said that the petitioners committed a logical fallacy by equating sexual orientation with an inability to have children. 

“Certainly, the denial of a motion for DNA testing is warranted when the request is premised solely on such tenuous or insubstantial grounds,” the CA said in affirming an earlier ruling by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 105.

“This holds true all the more in this case where petitioners’ allegations are met with Raphaella and Gabriel’s certificates of live birth, which, as public documents, carry considerable evidentiary weight, such that a high degree of proof is needed to overthrow the presumption of the truth contained in such public documents,” it added.

The case involved two parcels of land in Quezon City, as well as bank savings and checking accounts.

The petitioners, Deramas’ sister, nephews, and niece, filed a case after they discovered that the children had transferred the properties to their name.

According to the CA, the petitioners said that Deramas informally adopted Gabriel and Raphaella in 2000 and 2010, respectively. Deramas had also convinced his friend Ariane Manalo to do the same. 

Since Manalo is an openly lesbian woman and Deramas was an openly gay man, the petitioners said that "they could not have sired Gabriel and Raphaella," according to the CA. It also said the petitioners argued that Deramas and Manalo were never married. 

However, the birth certificates of Gabriela and Raphaella indicate Deramas as their father and Manalo as their mother.

In their petition, Deramas’ sister and other relatives asked the CA to set aside the rulings of the QC RTC and to direct the RTC to issue an order allowing the conduct of the DNA testing.

Deramas passed away in February 2016. —VBL, GMA Integrated News