New policies on late birth registration aim to prevent abuses similar to Alice Guo case

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has implemented additional requirements for the late registration of births to prevent possible abuses, such as those believed to have occurred in the case of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo.

Late registration refers to the recording of a birth more than 30 days after it occurred.

Assistant National Statistician Engineer Marizza Grande, during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, said the PSA has had a joint memorandum circular with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) since 2021 that outlines the procedures for delayed registration.

“In addition to the previous na rules on the delayed registration, we required the mandatory submission of barangay certificates and also additional documents such as birth or passport of the parents if they are a foreigner. So that was in 2021,” Grande said on Monday.

She said the agency further reviewed and strengthened the birth registration process following Guo’s case, in which late registration was allegedly used.

“Additional mandatory as part of the requirements now is to personally appear the registrant, if of age will have to personally appear in the local civil registrars. Then they have to enroll in the national ID. Because with national ID we can get the biometrics, not only the demographic but the biometric and the photo of that person. And also some identification of the parents, the parents of the registrant which was not required before,” Grande explained.

Grande reported that in 2023, 1.3 million Filipinos registered their births on time, while 1.027 million were late registrants.

Meanwhile, based on the 2020 census of population, 96.6% of Filipinos have birth certificates, while about 3.6 million births remain unregistered.

To address this, the PSA launched the Birth Registration Assistance Project in February 2022 to register individuals from vulnerable sectors. So far, the program has registered 480,000 individuals out of its 2 million target.

Grande added that the agency supports the institutionalization of the barangay civil registry system and is currently developing the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system (eCRVS).