DSWD encourages every family to opt for legal adoption

By Analiza S. Macatangay

Monday 13th of February 2012

NAGA City, Feb 13 (PIA) -- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) leads this week’s observance of the Adoption Consciousness Week underlining campaign pushing for legal adoption among families who have taken custody of children without the legal aid of the existing law.

DSWD V assistant regional Director Evelyn Lontok, in a press conference over the weekend, sought the support of media in Camarines Sur in raising the consciousness of every individual on the importance of legal adoption.

This year's theme “ISULONG, Legal na Pag-aampon” has been aptly chosen to address the increasing number of children, some abandoned or orphaned and a great number neglected, also needs a family to love and protect them.

“One way of really expressing our love for our adopted child is to ensure that after we are gone, they will have something for them. In legal terms, we mean inheritance. Legal adoption will provide this security blanket that will protect them from any threat of being left or abandoned again,” Lontok added.

In Bicol, Lontok said that there are more or less 41 children under their custody, with almost half of them under foster care. Foster Care is the provision of substitute parental care to a child by a licensed family.

This means, she added, that the adopted children under their care still have legitimate parents but are incapable of taking good care of them. Believing that every child needs a loving and caring family, this scheme will enable the child to experience real family life provided by their foster family.

Adoption is defined as a socio-legal process of providing a permanent family to a child whose parents have voluntarily or involuntarily relinquished their parental authority over the child.

“Legal adoption is for the best interest of children. It will provide them with the assurance of the protection provided by the State and will protect them from abuses and harshness of the outside world,” Lontok stated.

Lontok reiterated that adoption is indeed a noble act, providing a feeling of fulfillment to the adoptive parents while giving a sense of familial sense to the adopted child. It’s a mutually beneficial feeling that would enhance the lives of the parties involve. She also pushes for domestic adoption which will give a permanent family a child that they “legally” call their own.

Under Republic Act 8552, Section 34 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Domestic Adoption Act, adoptive parents may be given maternity and paternity benefits if the adoptee is less than seven years old at the time of the placement to the adoptive parents by virtue of the Pre Placement Authority given by the DSWD. (MAL/LSMacatangay, PIA-Camarines Sur)