Speaking before some 25 prospective adoptive couples in Tacloban City, DSWD Field Office Eight retainer – lawyer, Sionne Gaspay, emphasized in her talk that “adoption is now considered more for the benefit of the child than for the adopter.”   She said, the concept of adoption has changed because in the past, it was more for the good of the adopter who has no child or has lost his child.

Gaspay, then, pointed out that adoption is given a social and moral purpose, that is, to extend to the child the protection of society in the person of the adopter. She further cited the nature of adoption proceedings which are always judicial; hence, no valid adoption if no court decree.

The lawyer also said that the “mere fact that the child, who has lived with the adopter who has treated him like his own child, is not sufficient to establish a valid adoption.”

“Neither is the mere registration of the child, in his or her birth certificate, as the child of the supposed adapter, a valid adoption,” she further stated. Gaspay added that what people don’t know is that they can be charged with the crime of simulation of the child’s birth, and punished with a penalty of imprisonment of eight years and one day, and a fine of fifty thousand pesos.

The lawyer gave her talk during the Adoption and Foster Care Forum organized by the DSWD Field Office Eight under Regional Director Remia Tapispisan.

In same activity held recently at the Leyte Park Hotel in Tacloban City, Adoption Focal Person, Joy Penaranda, explained that aside from the individual counseling sessions conducted to the prospective adoptive couples, pre-adoption services such as attendance to an Adoption Forum is required, once a petition for Adoption is filed.