Legitimate Children Can Now Use Their Mother’s Surname, SC Ruled
MOTHER’S SURNAME – The Supreme Court has ruled that legitimate Filipino children can now use their mother’s surname as their own.
This stemmed from the case of Alanis vs. Court of Appeals, where the petitioner filed before the Regional Trial Court of Zamboanga City, Branch 12, according to a report from GMA News.
The petitioner filed to change his name, noting he was born to Mario Alanis y Cimafranca and Jamilla Imelda Ballaho y Al-Raschid, and that his name in his birth certificate was “Anacleto Ballaho Alanis III.”
He wanted to remove his father’s family name and use that of his mother’s name “Ballaho”, since he had been using it since childhood. He also wanted to change his first name from “Anacleto” to “Abdulhamid” for the same reasons.
He testified that his parents separated when he was five years old. His mother also testified that she raised the petitioner and his siblings single-handedly.
The decision, which was written by Justice Marvic F. Leonen, is to keep with the Constitution in ensuring the fundamental equality of men and women.
“Courts, like all other government departments and agencies, must ensure the
fundamental equality of women and men before the law. Accordingly, where the text of a law allows for an interpretation that treats women and men more equally, that is the correct interpretation,”
The decision also said that the Regional Trial Court (RTC) “gravely erred when it held that legitimate children cannot use their mothers’ family names. It also added that the RTC treated the names of the petitioner’s parents unequally which is “contrary to the State policy.”
Therefore, the SC ruled that “courts, like all other government departments and agencies must ensure the fundamental equality of women and men before the law,” noting that “the provision states that legitimate children shall ‘principally’ use the surname of the father, but ‘principally’ does not mean ‘exclusively,'” based on the report.
“this gives ample room to incorporate into Article 364 the State policy of ensuring the fundamental equality of women and men before the law, and no discernible reason to ignore it.”
“Patriarchy becomes encoded in our culture when it is normalized. The more it pervades our culture, the more its chances to infect this and future generations,”
“The trial court’s reasoning further encoded patriarchy into our system. If a surname is significant for identifying a person’s ancestry, interpreting the laws to mean that a marital child’s surname must identify only the paternal line renders the mother and her family invisible. This, in tum, entrenches the patriarchy and with it, antiquated gender roles: the father, as dominant, in public; and the mother, as a supporter, in private.”
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