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Silverio V. Republic of The Philippines: Article 9 - Duty of Courts/Judges To Render Judgment

The Supreme Court denied the petitioner's request to change the sex and name on their birth certificate from male to female. The Court ruled that under Philippine law, a person's sex is determined at birth based on their genitals and the birth certificate acts as an historical record of the facts at birth. While the petitioner underwent sex reassignment surgery, there are no laws in the Philippines recognizing changes to sex due to such procedures. Only the legislature, not the courts, has authority to address public policy issues around changes to identity documents for transgender individuals through legislation.

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Rugene Naragas Berato
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115 views1 page

Silverio V. Republic of The Philippines: Article 9 - Duty of Courts/Judges To Render Judgment

The Supreme Court denied the petitioner's request to change the sex and name on their birth certificate from male to female. The Court ruled that under Philippine law, a person's sex is determined at birth based on their genitals and the birth certificate acts as an historical record of the facts at birth. While the petitioner underwent sex reassignment surgery, there are no laws in the Philippines recognizing changes to sex due to such procedures. Only the legislature, not the courts, has authority to address public policy issues around changes to identity documents for transgender individuals through legislation.

Uploaded by

Rugene Naragas Berato
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

ARTICLE 9 – DUTY OF COURTS/JUDGES TO RENDER JUDGMENT

SILVERIO v. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

October 22, 2007


G.R. No. L-174689
Petitioner/s: Rommel Jacinto Dantes Silverio
Respondent/s: Republic of the Philippines

FACTS:

Petitioner was born and registered as male. He admitted that he is a male transsexual, that is, “anatomically
male but feels, thinks and acts as a “female” and that he had always identified himself with girls since
childhood. He underwent psychological examination, hormone treatment, breast augmentation and sex
reassignment surgery. From then on, petitioner lived as female and was in fact engaged to be married. He
then sought to have his name in his birth certificate changed from Rommel Jacinto to Mely, and his sex from
male to female. The trial court rendered a decision in favor of the petitioner. Republic of the Philippines thru
the OSG (Office of the Solicitor General) filed a petition for certiorari (a court process to seek judicial review
of a decision of a lower court or administrative agency. The term comes from the name of an English
prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior
court for review.) in the Court of Appeals. CA rendered a decision in favor of the Republic.

ISSUE:

Whether or not petitioner is entitled to change his name and sex in his birth certificate.

RULING:

Article 376 of the Civil Code provides that no person can change his name or surname without judicial
authority which was amended by RA 9048 – Clerical Error Law which does not sanction a change of first
name on the ground of sex reassignment. Before a person can legally change his given name, he must
present proper or reasonable cause or any compelling reason justifying such change. In addition, he must
show that he will be prejudiced by the use of his true and official name. In this case, he failed to show, or
even allege, any prejudice that he might suffer as a result of using his true and official name. Article 412 of
the Civil Code provides that no entry in the civil register shall be changed or corrected without a judicial
order. The birth certificate of petitioner contained no error. All entries therein, including those corresponding
to his first name and sex, were all correct. Hence, no correction is necessary. Article 413 of the Civil Code
provides that all other matters pertaining to the registration of civil status shall be governed by special laws.
However, there is no such special law in the Philippines governing sex reassignment and its effects. Under
the Civil Register Law, a birth certificate is a historical record of the facts as they existed at the time of
birth. Thus, the sex of a person is determined at birth, visually done by the birth attendant (the physician or
midwife) by examining the genitals of the infant. Considering that there is no law legally recognizing sex
reassignment, the determination of a person’s sex made at the time of his or her birth, if not attended by
error is immutable

For these reasons, while petitioner may have succeeded in altering his body and appearance through the
intervention of modern surgery, no law authorizes the change of entry as to sex in the civil registry for that
reason. Thus, there is no legal basis for his petition for the correction or change of the entries in his birth
certificate. The remedies petitioner seeks involve questions of public policy to be addressed solely by the
legislature, not by the courts. Hence, petition is denied.

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