Photo Release

Senate ratifies Administrative Domestic Adoption Bill: Sen. Risa Hontiveros, chairperson of the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, sponsors the bicameral conference report on the harmonized version of Senate Bill No. (SBN) 1993 and House Bill No. (HBN) 8998, or the Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act of 2021. The senator said the measure, once enacted into law, will provide for administrative adoption, thereby removing the judicial process that has previously made legal adoption lengthy and costly. Furthermore, Hontiveros said: “It improves our existing policies and processes on alternative childcare to better protect the best interests of the child, particularly the neglected and abandoned children, and to bring them into loving homes.” The bicameral report was unanimously adopted in the plenary Tuesday, September 28, 2021. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)