Press Release
August 18, 2009

PIMENTEL CALLS FOR LEGISLATION
TO FULLY SIMPLIFY CHILD ADOPTION

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. (PDP Laban) today batted for the enactment of a legislation that will fully simplify the system of adopting orphans and neglected children.

Pimentel said he is now drafting a bill that prescribes new ways of alternative child care and will consolidate all laws on domestic adoption and inter-country adoption, foster care and guardianship of children.

He said the bill, entitled "The Alternative Child Care Code of 2009," seeks the establishment of the National Child Welfare Authority (NCWA) that will be responsible for implementing all laws relevant to alternative child care in the country.

Under the proposal, he said a person eligible to adopt shall file his or her application for adoption with NCWA or through an accredited and licensed child placing agency.

"The adoption proceedings will now be administrative and non-adversarial in nature. There will be less legal hassles to overcome. The adoption shall be decided within 30 days upon submission of all complete documents required by the Authority," Pimentel told the l0th Global Consultation on Child Welfare Services at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City.

"Hopefully, we shall soon see that all children -- the abandoned, the abused, the neglected - in this country shall have homes to nurture them, families to guide and mold their values and provide them with a peaceful and loving environment that will help prepare their childhood for productive adult lives ahead of them."

Pimentel said the Philippines scored a major breakthrough in the field of alternative child care when Congress enacted into law Republic Act 9523 which authorized the Department of Social Welfare and Development to declare an abandoned child legally available for adoption. This piece of legislation was signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on March 12, 2009.

With the effectivity of the new law, he said the process of adoption is now shortened by about three weeks since the route towards declaring an abandoned child legally available for adoption is no longer a court function.

RA 9523 provides that within seven days from the date of recommendation by the DSWD regional director, the necessary certification may now be issued by the DSWD secretary that a child is legally available for adoption.

Pimentel said the new law is a step towards the higher goal of fully simplifying the child adoption system.

"The new law does not complete our desire to facilitate the adoption process. It merely marks the beginning of our journey in making adoption a less protracted procedure," he said.

The senator from Mindanao said that with further refinements in the process of child adoption, the divine injunction to love others specially the least fortunate will be fulfilled.

"And in concrete worldly sense, we also help do away with that terrible notion propagated by the hateful, irrational and egotistical individuals that there is such a being as an unwanted child," Pimentel said.

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