Foundlings at risk of statelessness in the Philippines: Progress and challenges

As part of the 65th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, we are sharing examples of how States are implementing safeguards that help prevent statelessness in practice. In this article, Melvin Suarez reflects on legal and policy developments in the Philippines that have strengthened protection for foundlings and advanced the right of every child to acquire a nationality.

Legal change in recent years has significantly improved the rights of deserted or abandoned children in the Philippines to be granted citizenship, but there remain problems with implementation on the ground.

Philippine law and policy have evolved over the past decade to significantly better protect foundlings from the risk of statelessness. A foundling is a deserted or abandoned child or infant with unknown parentage or facts of birth. Foundlings are often deprived of legal identity, and stripped of the opportunity to embrace a nationality, without any fault of their own.

Recently, the Philippines’ legal framework has developed to the point that foundlings have significant protection in law. There is a presumption of natural-born Philippine citizenship for foundlings, including those found in specified overseas Philippine premises, which may be difficult to rebut or overturn. But this wasn’t always the case and some challenges remain which show that legal reform has not necessarily always delivered protection.

Starting to address the problem

Foundlings are at risk of statelessness due to difficulties establishing their parentage, on which Philippine citizenship is based.

In the past, a child or infant reported to the authorities as a foundling was entitled to be issued only with a Certificate of Foundling (CoF). The CoF primarily indicates the identity of the finder of the foundling and the circumstances as to when and where the child was found, but it did not establish citizenship.

In 2010-2011, the Philippines Government, along with stakeholders including the UNHCR (the United Nations’ Refugee Agency) identified populations considered to be ‘at risk of statelessness’, which included foundlings (and others, such as children of Filipino descent in migratory settings, Persons of Indonesian Descent in Southern Philippines, and Persons of Japanese Descent).

The lack of citizenship of foundlings became a national focus in 2016

Mary Grace Natividad Poe-Llamanzares, popularly known as Grace Poe, was found abandoned in a parish church in Jaro, Iloilo in 1968 as an infant and was registered as a foundling. When she was five years old, she was adopted by a prominent show business couple in the Philippines. After finishing school she studied at the University of the Philippines before moving to the U.S. where she completed a degree in political science at Boston College. Having been a long-term U.S. resident, she was naturalised as an American citizen and was thereafter a holder of an American passport. In 2005, after the death of her father, she decided to return to the Philippines. In 2006, she took an oath of allegiance to the Philippines under Republic Act No. 9225 (the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act of 2003) and renounced her American citizenship.

In the 2013 national elections, Poe won a position as Senator, obtaining the highest number of votes in the senatorial race. In the May 2016 national elections, she ran as a Presidential candidate. In her Certificate of Candidacy for President, then Senator Poe claimed citizenship as natural-born Filipino. However, a legal challenge was filed with the Commission on Elections to cancel her Certificate of Candidacy for President on the grounds that she was not a natural-born Filipino and that she failed to comply with the ten year residency requirement, as required under the 1987 Constitution (Article VII, Section 2).

On the issue of citizenship, the legal claim maintained that under the principle of jus sanguinis, the Philippine law on citizenship to mean that a child’s citizenship depends on the nationality or citizenship of the parents regardless of the place of his/her birth, could not be applied to Senator Poe as a foundling. The Commission on Elections agreed with the claim and cancelled her Certificate of Candidacy for President. Poe then challenged the Commission’s decision in the Supreme Court.

The game-changing court cases on the protection of foundlings in the Philippines

The related cases of Poe-Llamanzares v. Commission on Elections, and David v. Senate Electoral Tribunal, both decided by the Supreme Court in 2016, the highest court in the Philippines, significantly changed the legal landscape in relation to foundlings within Philippine territory. They recognised foundlings’ civil status as natural-born Filipino citizens with protection by the State for basic human rights, including access to government services and assistance.

The Poe-Llamanzares case

The Supreme Court decided that as a matter of law, foundlings are, as a class, presumed to be natural-born citizens (but that this presumption is disputable in some circumstances). The Court added that while the 1935 Constitution, which was the Constitution in effect at the time of birth of Sen. Poe, is silent as to foundlings and their citizenship status, there was no restrictive language which would definitely exclude foundlings from being considered as citizens. The Court held that the deliberations of the 1934 Constitutional Convention show that the framers intended foundlings to be citizens of the Philippines.

The Supreme Court further held that domestic laws on adoption support the principle that foundlings are Filipinos: An adoptee must be a Filipino to be adopted; that Philippine adoption laws (such as Republic Act (R.A.) No. 8043, the Inter-Country Adoption Law and R.A. No. 8552 or the Domestic Adoption Law, and the Supreme Court Rule on Adoption under Administrative Matter No. 02-6-02-SC) all expressly refer to ‘Filipino children’, and include foundlings as among Filipino children who may be adopted.

The Court also found that the Department of Foreign Affairs issues passports to foundlings, passports being issued only to citizens; and that that foundlings are considered citizens under international law, citing Article 15, Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 7, Convention on the Rights of the Child; Article 24, International Convention on Civil and Political Rights; Article 14, Hague Convention; and Article 2 of the 1961 Convention. The Court also found that the presumption of the natural-born citizenship of foundlings stems from the presumption that their parents are nationals of the Philippines.

David v. Senate Electoral Tribunal

Earlier, in 2015, in the case of Rizalito Y. David v. SET, a petition for quo warranto (used to test a person’s legal right to hold an office) was filed before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) to unseat Senator Poe for allegedly not being a natural-born Filipino. David had also been vying for a Senate seat. When the SET dismissed the petition, the case was elevated to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court held that when the names of the parents of a foundling cannot be discovered despite a diligent search, but sufficient evidence is presented to sustain a reasonable inference that satisfies the quantum of proof required to conclude that at least one or both of his or her parents is Filipino, then this should be sufficient to establish that he or she is a natural-born citizen.

The Court further declared that ‘all foundlings in the Philippines are born to at least either a Filipino father, or a Filipino mother, and are thus, natural-born unless there is substantial proof otherwise.’ The Court emphasised that under protections in the Constitution and other legislation, foundlings cannot be the object of discrimination; that they are vested with the right to be registered and granted nationality upon birth; and that to deny them these rights, deprive them of citizenship, and render them stateless would be to unduly burden them, discriminate them, and undermine their development. Thus, it held that Senator Poe was a natural-born Filipino citizen and qualified to become Senator of the Republic.

These decisions also set in motion an interesting provision of the Civil Code of the Philippines pertaining to the significance of judicial decisions in the Philippine legal system. Article 8 of the Code provides that ‘judicial decisions applying or interpreting the laws or the Constitution shall form part of the legal system of the Philippines.’ The Supreme Court observed that judicial interpretation is deemed part of or written into the text of the Constitution or law as of the date that it was originally passed.

More recent legal changes

As a representative of the Refugees and Stateless Persons Protection Unit of the Philippines Department of Justice, I advocated strongly in several inter-government agency multilateral discussions to push for the standard issuance of a Certificate of Live Birth to foundlings.

In 2021, our persistent efforts to achieve citizenship and protection rights for foundlings resulted in a formal position being adopted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The PSA, through the Civil Registrar General, is the authority with technical control of and supervision over civil registration in the Philippines. PSA Memorandum Circular No. 2021-24 dated 06 December 2021, sets out ‘Guidelines in the Registration of the Certificate of Live Birth of Persons with No Known Parent/s’, which authorises foundlings to register with local civil registrars and to secure a Certificate of Live Birth to prove their Philippine citizenship.

These milestones on foundling protection now embedded in jurisprudence and government policy were further strengthened by Congress when in 2022 it enacted the Foundling Recognition and Protection Act. Among the salient features of this vital piece of legislation is a provision on the presumption accorded to foundlings as natural-born Filipino citizens, which include those found not only within the Philippines but also in Philippine embassies, consulates, and territories abroad. The law further guarantees that the presumption of natural-born status to a foundling may not be impugned in any proceeding unless substantial proof of foreign parentage is shown. Furthermore, this presumption will not be affected if the foundling’s birth certificate was simulated, or that there was absence of a legal adoption process, or that there was inaction or delay in reporting, documenting, or registering a foundling. Anticipating a possible gap on the subjects covered by the law, a safeguard provision for retroactive application was included to cover foundlings who have reached the age of majority (18 years old) without benefitting from adoption procedures under the law. It is, thus, evident that the law is designed to be inclusive in affording protection to foundlings, including minors and those who turned 18 prior to its passage.

Significantly, in the same year, the Philippines acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This meant that the Philippines is one of only a small handful of nations in the Asia Pacific region (along with Australia, Kiribati and Turkmenistan) to have acceded to both the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention. The Senate has ratified the Convention, which means that it has the force and effect of a statute enacted by Congress.

Further action is needed

Despite these milestones and achievements, further reform is needed. The main challenge is the effective and efficient implementation of the Foundling Law and its aligned government policies. Unpublished information gathered from the Philippine Statistics Authority indicates that in January 2026, there were 7381 foundlings who were issued with Certificates of Foundling and are awaiting the conversion of them into a Certificate of Live Birth.

Further, the implementation of the Foundling Law through the Revised Guidelines in the Registration of the Certificate of Live Birth of Persons with No Parent/s was not issued until 2024. This means that, unfortunately, there are still outstanding issues in terms of implementing the law by local Civil Registrars on the ground.

It is hoped that the Philippine Government, in close partnership with the UNHCR and relevant stakeholders, and adopting a whole-of-government approach, will be able to effectively address these obstacles to give spirit to the legal recognition of the foundlings’ Philippine citizenship, and the exercise and protection of their rights and best interests.

Author:
Melvin Suarez
State Counsel and Senior Protection Officer, Refugees and Stateless Persons Protection Unit, Department of Justice, Philippines; Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness.