IN RE:  PETITION FOR CORRECTION OF ENTRY IN CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH, DANILO IBARRA SISON AND JOSEPHINE IBARRA SISON, PETITIONERS, VS. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, HON. BUENAVENTURA…

This Petition for Review
on Certiorari seeks the reversal of the Decision of the Court of First
Instance of Rizal, Branch XXIV, dismissing an Amended
Petition (Sp. Procs. Case No. 8934) for correction of
surname in records of birth.

On February
6, 1979,
petitioners, assisted by their grandmother, Gertrudes
Reyes, as they were minors, submitted an Amended Petition to respondent Court
for correction of their surnames from “de la Cruz”, as entered in their
respective Birth Certificates, to “Sison“.  A copy of this Amended Petition was served on
the Solicitor General on February 20, 1979.

On February
14, 1979, the Trial
Court issued an Order setting the case for hearing on April 6,
1979 and citing all
interested persons to show cause, if any, why the petition should not be
granted.  Copy of this Order was served
on the Civil Registrar and on the Solicitor General on February
20, 1979.  The Order was duly published in the Evening
Express, a newspaper of general circulation, once a week for three consecutive
weeks as required by the same Order.

On April 18, 1979, the State, through the Solicitor General,
filed an Opposition alleging that the corrections requested were substantial or
controversial in nature and that the summary procedure for correction of entry
in the Civil Registry under Art. 412 of the Civil Code in relation to Rule 108
of the Rules of Court is confined to mere clerical errors or harmless or
innocuous changes, citing Ty Kong Tin vs. Republic,
94 Phil. 321; Ansaldo vs. Republic, 102 Phil. 1046;
and Babayan vs. Republic, 16 SCRA 403.

Petitioners adduced their evidence before a duly appointed
commissioner in the presence of Solicitor Felixberto
C. de la Cruz.  No evidence was presented
by the State in support of its opposition.

On March 31, 1980,
the Trial Court promulgated a Decision denying the Petition on the grounds
raised in the Government’s opposition. 
Petitioners’ Motion for Reconsideration was similarly denied.  Hence, the instant recourse.

From the testimonial and documentary evidence submitted, the
following facts have been established:

Petitioners are the children of the late Antonio Sison and Gloria Ibarra. 
Antonio was one of the two children of Gertrudes
Reyes with her first husband Aurelio Sison, whom she
married in 1931.  Antonio was born on May 10, 1935.  Gertrudes was
married thrice.  She married her second
husband Laurencio de la Cruz in 1942.  Her third husband is now Jose Delgado.

On July 2, 1962,
Antonio eloped and married Gloria Ibarra before the Municipal Mayor of San
Juan, Rizal.  Antonio was then 27 years old.  He used the surname “de la Cruz” in the Marriage Contract (Exh.
“E”).  The couple begot two children, Danilo, born on October 4, 1962, and Josephine, born on March
21, 1964.  Their births were recorded in the Office of
the Local Civil Registrar of San Juan, Rizal, on October
25, 1962 and March
30, 1964,
respectively, under the family name “de la Cruz” (Exhs.
“M”, “M-1”). 
However, when they were baptized in the Parish of Sta. Cruz, San Juan, Metro Manila, Danilo,
on December 16, 1962 and Josephine, on August 17, 1964, their surnames were stated to be “Sison“, and they were given the Christian names of Danilo and Maria Jocelyn (Exhs.
“H”, “I”).  In subsequent
schooling they were also registered as Danilo Sison and Jocelyn I. Sison (Exhs. “J”, “K”, “L”).  They became known to relatives and friends by
such names.

Petitioners’ father,
Antonio, died of tetanus on March 14, 1978 (Exh.
“B”, “C”).  Their
mother Gloria, now works as a nurse in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.  It
appears that when the minors were to go to the States to join their mother it
was discovered during the processing of their travel papers, that their surname
in their birth registry was “de la Cruz”.

Petitioners have proved that their correct surname is “Sison“.  It was
error for their father, Antonio, to have entered “de la Cruz” as his
surname in his marriage contract and in the Birth Certificates of his children,
for, at the time of Antonio’s birth on May
10, 1935, his mother was then the wife of Aurelio Sison, whom she had married in 1931.  Antonio’s father was Aurelio Sison.  Although at
the time of his marriage in 1962, Antonio’s mother was then the wife of Laurencio de la Cruz, whom she married in 1942, our laws do
not authorize legitimate children to adopt the surname of a person who is not
their father.^[1]
It could be that Antonio used “de la Cruz” in order to hide his real
identity because of his elopement.  That
has given rise to the confusion which is now being sought to be clarified.

Procedurally, the only way by which a name can be changed legally
is by appropriate proceeding under Rule 103; that is, through a petition for
Change of Name, since a person’s legal name is what appears in the civil
register, not the name by which he was baptized or by which he has been known
in the community.^[2]
However, as in San Roque vs. Republic, 23 SCRA 444
(1968) the petition in this case may well be, in essence, one for judicial authority
to change names, for the petition prays for “correction of names”^[3]
and more specifically for an order “to make the necessary corrections in
the respective certificates of birth of petitioners by registering their names
therein as Danilo Sison y
Ibarra and Josephine Sison y Ibarra.”^[4]

“x x x Essentially, therefore, the petition admitted that appellee’s real name was Lucia San Roque
which, according to the Chomi case, was her true name
because it was the one appearing in the Civil Register, but that this
notwithstanding, she had been using continuously since birth and had been known
under the name of Leoncia San Roque.  These allegations were not only not denied by
the oppositor but were duly proven during the
hearing.  Ultimately, therefore,
notwithstanding the imperfection of language employed, the petition was, in
essence, one to secure judicial authority for appellee
to change her name from Lucia to Leoncia – a petition
which falls reasonably within the provisions of Rule 103.  That the petition was entitled one ‘to
correct name in the birth certificate of Leoncia San Roque‘ and prayed that petitioner’s name appearing in her
birth certificate be corrected accordingly did not neces­sarily make the
petition fall under the provisions of Rule 108, because even under the
provisions of Rule 103 the judgment or order rendered in connection with said
Rule shall be furnished the Civil Registrar of the municipality or city where
the Court who issued the same is situated, who shall forthwith enter the same
in the civil register (Section 6).

The record discloses, upon the other hand, that the provisions of
Rule 103 – similar to those of Rule 108 – had been strictly and fully complied
with and that the State had been given ample opportunity to state and prove its
case.

We, therefore, conclude that no reversible error was committed by
the trial court in considering the petition as one filed under the provisions
of Rule 103 of the Rules of Court.”^[5]

Moreover, as held in Matias vs.
Republic^[6],
per Acting Chief Justice J. B. L. Reyes, “Granting that the supplying of a
name that was left blank in the original recording of the birth does not consti­tute,
as contended by the Solicitor General, a rectification of a mere clerical
error, it is well to observe that the doctrine of the case of Ty Kong Tin v. Republic, 94 Phil. 321, and subsequent
adjudications predicated thereon, forbade only the entering of material
corrections or amendments in the record of birth by virtue of a judgment in a
summary action against the Civil Registrar.”

In this case, the proceedings below were not summary pursuant to
the rulings in the Matias case and in the more recent
one of Kumala Salim Wing
vs. Ahmad Abubakar, Civil Registrar of the Municipality
of Jolo,
et al^[7],
penned by Mr. Chief Justice Enrique M. Fernando, which case has also been
invoked by petitioners.  Therein, we
ruled:

“x x x the
proceedings were not summary, considering the publication of the petition made
by order of the court in order to give notice to any person that might be interested,
including direct service on the Solicitor General himself.”

Similarly herein, copies of the Petition and Amended Petition
were served on the Solicitor General. 
The Order of the Trial Court setting the petition for hearing was duly
published in a newspaper of general circulation once a week for three
consecutive weeks.  Copy of that Order
was likewise furnished the Solicitor General. 
Notwithstanding that all interested persons were cited to appear to show cause why the petition should not be granted,
no one appeared to oppose except the State through the Solicitor General.  But neither did the State present evidence in
support of its Opposition.  There
was a hearing on the merits where the State was duly represented and
cross-examined petitioners and their witness. 
No doubt is cast on the credibility of petitioners’ allegations nor upon
the evidence adduced by them.  Absent,
too, is any showing that prejudice would result to any party interested.^[8]

In his “Manifestation/Motion
in Lieu of Respondents’ Brief”, the Solicitor General has departed from
his posture below in the light of the Kumala Salim Wing case, supra, and has recommended that the
Decision appealed from be reversed. 
The recommendation is well taken.

WHEREFORE, the
Decision of respondent Judge, dated March 31, 1980, is hereby set aside, and another one
rendered granting the prayer for the change of petitioners’ surname entered as
“de la Cruz” in their respective records of birth with the Civil
Registrar of San Juan, to “Sison“, which is
their true surname.

Let a certified copy of
this Decision be served on the Civil Registrar of San Juan, Metro Manila, who
is hereby directed to make the corresponding entry in his records.

No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Fernando, C.J., Teehankee, Concepcion, Jr., Guerrero, Plana,
Escolin, Vasquez, Relova, and Gutierrez, Jr., JJ., concur.

Makasiar, J., see dissent.

Aquino, J., dissents.  The Chomi case lays down the correct rule.  The
petitioners should file a petition for change of surname.

Abad Santos, J., concurs with J. De Castro in his separate opinion.

De Castro, J., see separate opinion.

^[1]
Art. 364, Civil Code; Padilla vs. Republic, 113 SCRA 789 (1982).

^[2]
Chomi vs. Local Civil Registrar of Manila,
99 Phil. 1004 (1956).

^[3]
p. 1, Petition.

^[4]
p. 3, ibid.

^[5]
San Roque vs. Republic, supra.

^[6]
28 SCRA 31 (1969).

^[7]
102 SCRA 523 (1981).

^[8]
See Matias vs. Republic, supra.

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