Legitimate children can now choose to use their mother’s surname. Culturally, legitimacy of children is proven when the father’s surname is used. But contrary to popular belief, the Regional Trial Court emphasized the law that covers this matter.

In Republic Act No. 386, known as An Act to ordain and institute the Civil Code of the Philippines, the term “principally” is used, not “exclusively.” Article 364 of the act states that “Legitimate and legitimated children shall principally use the surname of the father.”

To clarify further, there is no law that limits the rights of a child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, to exclusively use one surname or the other of his/her parents. However, this would not have been clarified if Anacleto Alanis III from Zamboanga did not file a petition for change of name.

Anacleto filed a petition to use the name Abdulhamid Ballaho in recognition of and in gratitude to his mother who raised him alone. His petition was denied by the Zamboanga Regional Trial Court and Court of Appeals but it was reversed by the Supreme Court (SC).

The decision of the SC stated in its ruling that “Regardless of which name petitioner uses, his father’s identity still appears in his birth certificate, where it will always be written, and which can be referred to in cases where paternity is relevant.”

“Patriarchy becomes encoded in our culture when it is normalized. The more it pervades our culture, the more its chances to infect this and future generations,” it added.