Pia welcomes landmark law that seeks to speed up adoption process

"A loving and caring family for every abandoned, neglected, and orphaned child could soon become a reality."

Thus said Senator Pia S. Cayetano, as she welcomed the signing of the Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act, or Republic Act No. 11642.

"The new law simplifies the country's domestic adoption system by making it administrative in nature, and streamlining the processes and requirements," said Cayetano, an adoptive mother, and a co-author and co-sponsor of the measure.

She noted that the law will establish the National Authority for Child Care (NACC), an agency under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) that will exclusively handle all adoption, foster care, and other alternative child care cases, and will have its own personnel.

The establishment of the NACC and the streamlining of the adoption procedures were among the major amendments introduced by Cayetano to the final version of the measure.

"These reforms seek to speed up adoption proceedings while ensuring the best interest of the child. I know this law will save so many parents and children from the heartbreak of waiting and waiting for their adoption to be final," she stressed.

"I started work on placing abandoned and neglected children in temporary homes over 10 years ago, which resulted in the passage of the Foster Care Act (RA 10165). This Domestic Adoption law which I have actively worked on for over five years completes the structural reforms that are needed to ensure that every child in need can have a home to call his/her own," noted the senator.

"I too am an adoptive parent blessed to be raising my son who is now 11. I know of so many heartbreaking stories where young children have become teenagers before they got adopted, if at all, due to the bureaucracy, insufficient personnel handling adoption cases, and lengthy court proceedings," she explained.

"I can now say that we have a comprehensive domestic administrative adoption law. I have renewed hope that prospective parents won't have to wait too long to bring a child into their loving arms, and for children without parents to find their forever family sooner," concluded Cayetano.