A long awaited remedial legislation declaring permanent validity of birth, death and marriage certificates, hurdling Senate committee level scrutiny, inched closer to a plenary vote, paving the way for a bicameral panel to hammer out a reconciled final version of the same measure earlier passed by the House of Representatives.
As endorsed by the Senate Committees on Civil Service and Finance, the proposed legislation embodied in Senate Bill 2450, aims to mandate permanent or lifetime validity of birth, death and marriage certificates.
Listed as co-authors are Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto and Senators Francis Pangilinan, Sherwin Gatchalian, Joel Villanueva, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Juan Edgardo Angara.
These official documents are issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority, formerly National Statistics Office, as well as local governments’ Civil Registry Office and the Philippine Foreign Service Post.
Under Senate Bill 2450, all government offices, private companies, schools and nongovernment entities will be banned from requiring newly issued birth, death or marriage certificates from those transacting business with them.
This means that once enacted into law, these agencies are mandated to accept and recognize as valid even old copies of documents, even as it does not remove the right to require other supporting documents as basis for identity, such as dual citizens, or annulled marriage certificates.