This PH Law allows correction of Typographical Errors within the birth month

You or someone you know may have a name that contained clerical or typographical error. Unfortunately, most of the time, these errors are left as is, as most parents at that time had no luxury of going through the entire process just to have their child’s name corrected.

Luckily, that won’t be the case anymore as Republic Act No. 10172 has already existed since 2012. But you might be asking, ‘what is this law all about?’

Republic Act No. 10172 or “An Act Further Authorizing the City or Municipal Civil Registrar or the Consul General to Correct Clerical or Typographical Errors in the Day and Month in the Date of Birth or Sex of a Person Appearing in the Civil Register Without Need of a Judicial Order, Amending for This Purpose Republic Act Numbered Ninety Forty-Eight”, removes the need of a judicial order in case a typographical error is officially recorded in the civil registrar.

This means that parents or guardians can appeal to the city or municipal civil registrar directly to clarify the correct name of a child and have it corrected without the need of a judicial order, which is required before this act was passed. Judicial orders are one of the main reasons for Filipinos who experience this blunder don’t bother having their child’s name corrected, particularly because of the fees and the long process involved.

Under the Section 1 or the Authority to Correct Clerical or Typographical Error and Change of First Name or Nickname of the R.A., it states that “No entry in a civil register shall be changed or corrected without a judicial order, except for clerical or typographical errors and change of first name or nickname, the day and month in the date of birth or sex of a person where it is patently clear that there was a clerical or typographical error or mistake in the entry, which can be corrected or changed by the concerned city or municipal civil registrar or consul general in accordance with the provisions of this Act and its implementing rules and regulations.”

Section 2 describes ‘clerical or typographical error’ refers to a mistake committed in the performance of clerical work in writing, copying, transcribing or typing an entry in the civil register. This means that the law only allows the name correction for such instances. Parents or guardians who want to change their child’s name into a completely different name is not allowed.

Section 5 of the R.A. describes the necessary documents needed for a petition to be honored:

(1) A certified true machine copy of the certificate or of the page of the registry book containing the entry or entries sought to be corrected or changed;

(2) At least two (2) public or private documents showing the correct entry or entries upon which the correction or change shall be based; and

(3) Other documents which the petitioner or the city or municipal civil registrar or the consul general may consider relevant and necessary for the approval of the petition.

A certain fee is still needed to be paid for those who want to go through this process, where section 4 states that all fees collected by the city or municipal civil registrar or the consul general pursuant to this Act shall accrue to the funds of the Local Civil Registry Office concerned or the Office of the Consul General for modernization of the office and hiring of new personnel and procurement of supplies, subject to government accounting and auditing rules.