G.R. No. L-21010. November 28, 1969
TAN PONG, MINOR, REPRESENTED BY HIS GUARDIAN AD-LITEM ARNULFO M. NONO, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS, TAN YIAT AI AND CO…
CASTRO, J.:
The plaintiff Tan Pong filed a complaint (civil case 6269) with
the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental,
praying (1) that he be adjudged the illegitimate child of one Mercedes Robles,
said to be a Filipino citizen, by an unknown common-law husband; (2) that the
defendant civil registrar of Bacolod City be ordered
to change certain entries in the plaintiff’s record of birth respecting (a) his
name which he claims is Morito Robles; (b) the date
of his birth which he avers is January 4, 1948, not February 6, 1947; (c) his
nationality which he asserts to be Filipino, not Chinese; and (d) his civil
status which is that of an illegitimate child of Mercedes Robles, Filipino
citizen, single, instead of the legitimate child of Tan Yiat
Ai and Co Bee; and (3) that the defendant deputy of the Commissioner of
Immigration be directed to cancel not only the alien certificate of
registration issued by the Bureau of Immigration which registers him as a citizen
of China but as well all records connected therewith.
Named parties defendants are the Chinese spouses Tan Yiat Ai and Co Bee, the Republic of the Philippines,
the civil registrar of Bacolod
City and the administrative deputy
of the Commissioner of Immigration.
The lower court’s order setting the complaint for hearing on
October 7, 1961 and inviting all interested persons to appear and show cause
why the reliefs sought should not be granted, was
published once a week for three consecutive weeks in the Civismo,
a newspaper of general circulation in the province of Negros
Occidental.
On September 7, 1961
the spouses Tan filed an answer, admitting all the material allegations of the
complaint. As special defenses, they
alleged that (a) the defendant Tan Yiat Ai filed with
the office of the local civil registrar on February 14, 1950 a certificate of
birth for the plaintiff in which he represented that the latter’s place of
birth is Bacolod City, his full name Tan Pong, his
date of birth February 6, 1947, his nationality Chinese, and that he is a
legitimate child of the defendants spouses, because the latter sincerely
believed that, by virtue of the document[1]
executed in defendant Tan Yiat Ai’s favor by the
plaintiff’s real mother, Mercedes Robles, the plaintiff became their own son
to all legal intents and purposes; and (b) the defendants spouses obtained for
the plaintiff an alien certificate of registration and since then up to the
present have reported the plaintiff as a citizen of China and, the defendant
Tan Yiat Ai as his father, because they were of the
honest impression that the plaintiff, by virtue of the said document, annex A,
truly became, to all legal intents and purposes, their own Chinese son.
The defendants Alfredo Tambasen (local
civil registar) and Jesus R. Garcia (administrative
deputy of immigration) filed their answer, traversing all the material
allegations of the complaint, and raising special defenses most important of
which is that the plaintiff’s suit is not the proper action because it seeks
not merely the correction of a clerical error, but as well the declaration of
the citizenship of the plaintiff, which matter may be threshed out only in an
appropriate proceeding.
The Republic of the Philippines, through the Solicitor General,
filed its answer which, besides controverting all the
material allegations of the complaint, raised the affirmative defense that the
complaint was in reality a triple action for correction the plaintiff’s birth
record under article 412 of the Civil Code, for declaratory relief under Rule
66 of the Rules of Court, and for a writ of mandamus under section 3 of Rule
67, all of which cannot be joined in a single complaint.
Thereafter the Republic of the Philippines, Alfredo Tambasen and Jesus R. Garcia filed a motion to dismiss,
predicated on the following grounds: (1)
the corrections sought are not merely clerical in nature as contemplated in
article 412 of the Civil Code, but on the contrary involve substantial changes
in the plaintiff’s birth certificate affecting his identity, name, filiation, paternity and citizenship, as well as the
identity and paternity of the spouses Tan Yiat Ai and
Co Bee, as parents of the plaintiff; (2) declaration of the plaintiff’s
citizenship (as Filipino) through correction of alleged errors in the birth
certificate arising from alleged erroneous and/or invalid entries in the said
birth certificate, is not countenanced in this jurisdiction; (3) to direct the
Bureau of Immigration by mandamus to cancel the plaintiff’s alien certificate
of registration and all other pertinent records, is without justification; and
(4) there is in law no proceeding for declaration of Philippine citizenship.
In their memorandum of October
25, 1961, the spouses Tan denied the charge made by the assistant
city attorney that they were in connivance with the plaintiff.
On October 30, 1962
the plaintiff filed a pleading which is in the nature both of a memorandum
and an opposition to the motion to dismiss.
Because it discovered upon examination of the evidence that the
plaintiff or his guardian ad litem had
not been presented as a witness, the lower court issued on November 7, 1962 an order to reopen the case,
upon previous notice to all parties, to enable it to probe into the motivation
behind the action.
On January 5, 1963,
after trial on the merits, the lower court rendered a decision, the dispositive portion of which reads as follows:
“WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered for the plaintiff and
against the defendants, and it is hereby ordered:
“(1) That the Local Civil
Registrar of Bacolod City cancel the entry in his
office whereby the plaintiff, Tan Pong, is registered as a legitimate son of
the spouses Tan Yiat Ai and Co Bee, and
“(2) The Deputy Commissioner of Immigration,
Iloilo Branch, is hereby ordered to cause the cancellation in the Alien
Registry of the name of the Plaintiff, Tan Pong, as one of the children of the
defendant spouses, and in particular, it is hereby ordered that the
plaintiff’s name be striken out from the Master Cards
of registered aliens, No. 123902 and No. 123904.”
Dissatisfied with the said judgment, the defendants (except the
defendants spouses) appealed to this Court, contending that the lower court
erred (1) in ordering the correction of the plaintiff’s status and citizenship
in the birth records of the civil registrar of Bacolod
City and in the records of the office of the deputy commissioner of
immigration in a summary proceeding under art. 412 of the new Civil Code; and
(2) in ordering the correction of the plaintiff’s citizenship in the birth and
immigration records, which correction, in effect, declares him a Filipino,
when there is no proceeding available for the purpose of obtaining such a
declaration of citizenship.
The court made extensive findings of fact.
In 1947 Mercedes Robles, a Filipino woman, about three months
pregnant and abandoned by her common-law husband, went to work as a laundress
for one Loreto C. Tan. On or about January 6, 1947, while thus employed,
she gave birth to a baby boy whom she called Morito. Mercedes offered the child to Loreto C. Tan
but the latter declined as he had children of his own. Remembering, however, that Tan Yiat Ai and his wife had once expressed, a desire to adopt
one of his children, Loreto C. Tan asked Mercedes if she was willing to give
up her child in adoption to the Chinese couple.
Mercedes agreed. They then went
to see Tan Yiat Ai; thereafter Mercedes Robles, Tan Yiat Ai, Loreto C. Tan and the child Morito
convened in Atty. Rafael Guerrero’s office.
This lawyer then prepared a document in English which purportedly
embodied their agreement. This was
translated into the Visayan dialect for the benefit
of Mercedes. After the document in the Visayan dialect was typed in final form by his clerk, Atty.
Guerrero explained: its contents to
Mercedes and Tan Yiat Ai. Mercedes and Tan Yiat
Ai forthwith signed the document, Loreto C. Tan and Manuel Gentapanan
affixed their signatures as witnesses thereto, and Atty. Guerrero notarized the
same. The original document in the Visayan dialect is marked exhibits B and 1.
The English version of the document, marked exhibits B-1 and 1-A,
reads as follows:
“SO THAT ALL MAY KNOW:
“We, Mercedes Robles, of legal age, Fillpina
and residing in Bacolod City, Negros
Occidental and Tan Yiat Ai, of legal age, merchant,
Chinese and likewise residing in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, hereunder agree:
“That I, Mercedes Robles, have a son whose age is six months
and who has not yet been baptized but I call him ‘Morito‘.
“Because I can not support my son mentioned above inasmuch as
I have many children and I do not have a husband to help me (my common-law husband
is far away and I do not know now his whereabouts) support them and because
what I could earn (laundress) is not even enough for me and for my bigger
children, on my own free will, I am giving to said Mr. Tan Yiat
Ai whom I know to be a man who is loving, can support and can afford to educate
my said son and because of this, said Mr. Tan Yiat Ai
will be the one to support said child and when he gets older, he (Tan) will
spend for his education and will love him as if he were his own child and because
of this, I will not interfere and all my parental authority over said child, I
have given to Mr. Tan Yiat Ai.
“I, Tan Yiat Ai, because of the
voluntary will of Mrs. Mercedes Robles and because of my love for the said
child that is being given to me by Mercedes Robles, promise to comply with my
obligations as a parent of said child by supporting him well, loving him as my
own child and educating him as well as I can until he reaches the age of majority
(21) years.
“IN WITNESS WHEREOF, we have set our hands on this document on
this 6th day of July, 1948, at Bacolod
City.
MERCEDES ROBLES TAN
YIAT AI
“IN THE PRESENCE OF TWO WITNESSES:
LORETO TAN MANUEL
GENTAPANAN
“REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
“CITY OF BACOLOD
“In the City of Bacolod, this 6th
day of July, 1948, A.D., personally appeared before me Messrs. Tan Yiat Ai and Mercedes Robles, personally known to me to be
the same persons who signed the foregoing document and who ratified and
acknowledged the same to be their free and voluntary act and deed. Mercedes Robles exhibited her res. cert. No.
A-3657451 issued at Bacolod
City on July 6, 1948; Tan Yiat
Ai with res. cert. No. A-1600638 issued at Bacolod City
on Jan. 13, 1948.
“BEFORE ME.
Doc. No. 160
Page No. 68 RAFAEL
GUERRERO
Book No. 17 NOTARY
PUBLIC
Series of 1948. Until
Dec. 31, 1949.”
The boy (Morito) went to live with Tan Yiat Ai and the latter’s family. Three days later, Mercedes went to Tan Yiat Ai and informed him that she was leaving for Manila;
out of pity Tan Yiat Ai gave her P100. Mercedes was never heard of or from again
since then.
The court likewise found that Co Bee, the wife of Tan Yiat Ai, gave birth on August 13, 1948 to a boy, their last child, who was named
Manuel Tan. This boy died on February 1, 1954.
Meanwhile, Morito was named Tan
Pong. “Pong” means stout
in Chinese.
Tan Yiat Ai, thinking that the boy was
now his child because of the document which he had signed and because this was
so under Chinese law, accomplished a birth certificate (exh.
4) for Tan Pong, listing him as his and Co Bee’s legitimate child born on
February 6, 1947. Tan Yiat Ai secured an alien certificate of registration for
Tan Pong (exh. 5), recording the latter as having
been born on February 6, 1947
and naming Tan Yiat Ai as his father. He likewise included the name of Tan Pong in
his and his wife’s list of children in their master cards of registered aliens.
When Tan Pong became of school age, Tan Yiat
Ai enrolled him in the Tay Tung,
later in the Iloilo Chinese
Commercial School,
and, at the time of the filing of the action below, in the Hua Ming Catholic
School.
According to the court, sometime in 1961, when Tan Pong was about
14 years old, he discovered the document dated July 6, 1948 (exhs. B and 1)
among the papers of Tan Yiat Ai and read the
same. Confronted with the document, Tan Yiat Ai admitted to Tan Pong that the latter is the same Morito referred to in the document. Thus, having discovered that Tan Yiat Ai and Co Bee were not his real parents and that his
mother was a Filipina by the name of Mercedes Robles, Tan Pong, on August 28, 1961, with the assistance
of deputy clerk of court Arnulfo M. Mono, filed the
present action.
The complaint must be dismissed.
The plaintiff-appellee brought this
action for the purpose, among others, of establishing his filiation
and of securing judicial approval of his recognition. But he has not impleaded
Mercedes Robles or the latter’s heirs or kin, who are indispensable parties.[2]
This omission is fatal.
In In Re Jiro
Mori,[3] a
minor, through her mother and guardian ad litem,
filed a petition with the court of first instance, accompanied by a certified
copy of a notarial document which purported to be a
recognition by a Japanese citizen – whose whereabouts were unknown – of the filiation of the child though still in the womb of its
mother, praying the said court to approve the acknowledgment made
therein. The lower court dismissed the
petition, holding that the relief prayed for can be obtained only by the
institution of an ordinary civil action.
This Court, affirming, held that it is not sufficient for the person so
recognized to file a mere petition asking the court to approve the
acknowledgment. He must file an ordinary
civil action against the person who allegedly executed the instrument of
recognition or any of his legal successors.
The foregoing pronouncement – although made before the effectivity of the new Civil Code – is still good law. And not without reason. The supposed recognizing parent must be
afforded opportunity to admit or deny the authenticity or genuineness of the
alleged instrument of acknowledgment.
After all, recognition charges him with certain obligations even as it
confers upon the recognized or acknowledged child the corresponding rights – e.g.,
to bear the surname of the recognizing parent, and to receive support and
inherit from such parent.[4]
Upon the other hand, the legal heirs or successors of the supposed
acknowledging parent should likewise be given opportunity to impugn – if they
have good grounds to do so – the alleged document of acknowledgment, because
they stand to suffer diminution of their share in the hereditary portion of
the alleged recognizing parent.
But assuming arguendo that the
present action is legally sufficient for the purpose of establishing the
plaintiff-appellee’s filiation
and of securing judicial approval of his recognition, still it cannot, even if
successfully concluded, be used as a springboard to secure a direct
declaration of the plaintiff-appellee’s
citizenship. Indeed, his complaint also
seeks a ruling that he is a Filipino citizen, because it likewise prays the
lower court “to order the defendant Local Civil Registrar of Bacolod City to correct the entry of his birth in the
civil register so as to state . . his nationality as Filipino, …” In
fact, because the plaintiff appellee believes that
his supposed mother was not a woman of visible means and that she is moreover
already dead, having been unheard of or from for more than 13 years, it would
appear that he is interested more in establishing Philippine citizenship (by
proving illegitimate filiation to a Filipino mother)
than in establishing a right under the civil law. Needless to stress, there is no authorized
procedure for direct declaration of citizenship, and the plaintiff-appellee should not be allowed to secure by indirection
what the law does not allow directly.[5]
We are not of course to be understood as saying that the
political status of citizenship may not at all be established. It can as an incident to the adjudication of
a real and justiciable controversy[6] –
for example, in a case where the plaintiff or petitioner asserts a right exercisable
only by a Filipino citizen. There the
court can correctly declare that he is entitled to exercise such right (or
privilege) because he is a Filipino citizen.
But surely a court cannot, in an action where the plaintiff seeks to
establish his filiation and status as an acknowledged
illegitimate child of a Filipino woman, who is not made a party to the action,
and to impugn his status as a legitimate child of Chinese parents, make a
pronouncement that said plaintiff is the recognized natural child of a
Filipino woman, and, on this basis alone, declare and adjudge him a Filipino
citizen and order the corresponding correction of his birth and immigration
records.
ACCORDINGLY, the decision appealed from is reversed, and
the complaint is hereby dismissed. No
pronouncement as to costs.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L.,
Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Fernando, Teehankee,
and Barredo, JJ., concur.
[1]
Annex A of the Answer, exhs. B and 1, respectively.
[2] See
Mohamed Farrueco v. Consul General of Spain,
74 Phil. 151 (1943); Briz v. Briz, 43 Phil. 763 (1922).
[3]
83 Phil. 450 (1949).
[4]
Civil Code, art. 282.
[5] See
Republic v. Maddela, L-21664-65, March 28,
1969, 27 SCRA 702; Santiago v. Commissioner, L-14563, Jan. 31, 1963; Palaran vs. Republic, L-15047, Jan. 30, 1962; Tan v.
Republic, L-16108, Oct. 31, 1961; Tan Yu Chin v. Republic, L-15775,
April 29, 1961; Channie Tan v. Republic, 107
Phil. 632 (1960); Delumen v. Republic, L-5552,
Jan. 28, 1954.
[6] Channie Tan v. Republic, supra, note
5.