Press Release
July 19, 2016

GOV'T SHOULD STEP IN TO ACHIEVE 100% BIRTH PROFILING

Sen. Grace Poe is urging the new administration to intervene and put forward a plan to legally acknowledge a person's existence through 100-percent birth profiling.

Poe, champion of children's rights and welfare, said about 7.5 million Filipinos have no basic proof of identity and 10 percent of them were not registered at birth, a situation which she added is crucial to the recognition of a number of rights such as the right to seek employment, and to access social security benefits.

"The poor are the most vulnerable when it comes to birth registration. Many of our countrymen in far-flung areas are uninformed and do not have the means to register their children at birth," said Poe.

Poe filed Senate Bill No. 338 entitled Children in Need of Special Protection (CNSP) Birth Registration Act of 2016 seeking to advance and protect the rights of children by providing a framework for birth registration.

"Timely birth registration is a fundamental right of every child. This is expressly mandated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights on the right of an individual to his identity and nationality--treaties to which the Philippines is a signatory. It is the primary act towards the recognition of an individual by the State, the onset of establishing his legal identity and the entitlement to the benefits and protection afforded by the State to its citizens," the senator added.

Poe, citing a statement from the United Nations, said birth registration should be "universal" and provided for "free" by the government.

"Birth registration is deemed a basic human right. The child has the right to have a name that is recognized legally aside from having a nationality," Poe stressed.

News Latest News Feed