De Lima: Hike fines for failure to register birth, marriage, etc

Sen. Leila de Lima. (File photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Opposition Senator Leila de Lima wants to impose heavier penalties for failure to register births, marriages and deaths in the civil registry and for falsified entries in such documents.

De Lima filed Senate Bill No. (SBN) 1665 last Jan. 23, amending Section 9 of Presidential Decree (P.D.) No. 651, which mandates the immediate registration of births and deaths, and civil status, and penalties for violation of the said provision.

“It is (an) affront to our way of life to intentionally fail to register or falsify the entries in civil registries,” she said in a statement on Sunday.

“P.D. No. 651 was enacted specifically to preserve the integrity of our civil registry, which is one of the most essential components of our bureaucracy and governance, but it has undergone zero amendment or updating,” she added.

De Lima said that under Section 9 of P.D. No. 651, “any person required under this decree to report for registration any fact concerning his or her civil status and who fails to do so, or who deliberately makes false statements in the birth or death form and presents the same for registration, shall pay a fine of not less than P500 nor more than P1,000.”

Likewise, she noted that “any person who violates any rule or regulation which may be issued pursuant to this decree and any local public health officer who fails to perform his duties as provided for in this decree, or violates any rule or regulation which may be issued pursuant to this decree, shall also pay the above-mentioned fine.”

Under SBN 1665, meanwhile, De Lima proposed to increase the penalty for failure to register or falsification of the civil status per persons with a fine ranging from P40,000 to P1,200,000—which is the corresponding range of fines on correctional penalties under the Revised Penal Code (RPC) pursuant to Republic Act (R.A.) No. 10951.

“As a country, we need to be able to properly document our citizens in order to ensure that everyone will be accounted for and thus have access to all the blessings of democracy,” De Lima said. /cbb