CAN YOU file a petition in court to change your last name to your mother’s surname?
***
Our practice has been to carry our fathers’ surnames from the point of birth. This helps identify siblings, cousins, second cousins, down the line.
This also explains the patriarchal or macho predisposition to perpetuate the family name by siring at least one son who would pass it on to his children. It is not uncommon for couples who have girls to go on reproducing until the family is finally blessed with a son.
This practice has been so ingrained in our system that very few people think that carrying the mother’s surname even if born legitimate is a realistic option.
***
Our Civil Code provides that legitimate and legitimated children “shall principally use the surname of the father.”
On the other hand, the Family Code, which is a later enactment, provides that legitimate children have the right to bear the surnames of the father and the mother “in conformity with the provisions of the Civil Code on Surnames.”
Does this mean that legitimate children can only use the father’s surname?
***
In 1980, the Supreme Court gave its interpretation of this particular Civil Code provision.
According to the Court, the word “principally” as used in the provision is not equivalent to “exclusively” so that there is no legal obstacle if a legitimate or legitimated child should choose to use the surname of its mother to which it is equally entitled.
Despite this Supreme Court decision, however, our trial courts appear to have stuck to their guns – shooting down petitions to adhere to the mother’s surname.
***
In November 2020, one such petition again reached the Supreme Court.
The petitioner said that his parents had been separated from each other since he was five years old. His mother raised him single-handedly. He had therefore been using his mother’s surname in all his dealings – from his academic life to his social and economic relationships.
He therefore filed a petition in court asking that he be allowed to change his surname to that of his mother’s.
The trial court denied his petition because to allow the petitioner to drop his last name was to disregard the surname of his natural and legitimate father. A change in surname would supposedly trigger “much deeper inquiries” regarding his paternity or parentage.
The proper remedy should have been for the petitioner to correct his other records so that his name would conform to the name appearing on his birth certificate.
***
The Supreme Court reversed the trial court decision on the ground that it is the fundamental duty of the State to ensure the fundamental equality of women and men.
As a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Philippines is obligated to “modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.”
In reversing the trial court, the Supreme Court repeated its old ruling that while indeed the Civil Code provides that legitimate children shall “principally” use the surname of the father, “principally” does not mean “exclusively.”
***
So now we have options.
According to the Supreme Court, 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./PN
