Republic of the Philippines vs Carlito Kho

(GR No. 170340 , June 29, 2007)

Facts:

Carlito filed before the RTC a verified petition for correction of entries in the civil registry to
effect changes in their respective birth certificates. Carlito also asked the court in behalf of his
minor children to order the correction of some entries in their birth certificates. He requested
the correction in his birth certificate of the citizenship of his mother to "Filipino" instead of
"Chinese," as well as the deletion of the word "married" opposite the phrase "Date of marriage
of parents" because his parents were allegedly not legally married. And  that Carlito’s second
name of "John" be deleted from his record of birth; and that the name and citizenship of
Carlito’s father in his marriage certificate be corrected from "John Kho" to "Juan Kho" and
"Filipino" to "Chinese,". With respect to the birth certificates of Carlito’s children, he prayed
that the date of his and his wife’s marriage be corrected from April 27, 1989 to January 21,
2000, the date appearing in their marriage certificate. The trial court directed the local civil
registrar to make such corrections in the entries in the record. CA affirmed.

Petitioner Republic of the Philippines contends that since the changes sought by respondents
were substantial in nature, they could only be granted through an adversarial proceeding in
which indispensable parties, such as Marivel and respondents’ parents, should have been
notified or impleaded. Petitioner further contends that the jurisdictional requirements to
change Carlito’s name under Section 2 of Rule 103 of the Rules of Court were not satisfied

Issue: Whether or not the failure to implead Marivel and Carlito’s parents rendered the trial
short of the required adversary proceeding and the trial court’s judgment void.

Ruling: No.

Even substantial errors in a civil registry may be corrected through a petition filed under Rule
108. When all the procedural requirements under Rule 108 are thus followed, the appropriate
adversary proceeding necessary to effect substantial corrections to the entries of the civil
register is satisfied.

The trial court ordered setting the petition for hearing and directing any person or entity
having interest in the petition to oppose it was posted as well as published for the required
period; notices of hearings were duly served on the Solicitor General, the city prosecutor of
Butuan and the local civil registrar; and trial was conducted during which the public
prosecutor, acting in behalf of the OSG, actively participated by cross-examining Carlito and
Epifania.

Verily, a petition for correction is an action in rem, an action against a thing and not against a
person. The decision on the petition binds not only the parties thereto but the whole world. An
in rem proceeding is validated essentially through publication. Publication is notice to the
whole world that the proceeding has for its object to bar indefinitely all who might be minded
to make an objection of any sort against the right sought to be established. It is the publication
of such notice that brings in the whole world as a party in the case and vests the court with
jurisdiction to hear and decide it.  It becomes unnecessary to rule on whether Marivel or
respondents’ parents should have been impleaded as parties to the proceeding.

Hence, while the jurisdictional requirements of Rule 103 (which governs petitions for change
of name) were not complied with, observance of the provisions of Rule 108 suffices to effect
the correction sought for.