DILG supports legal adoption campaign

February 11, 2017

Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno enjoins all local chief executives to support the Legal Adoption Campaign this February to ensure nationwide awareness of the growing number of orphaned, abandoned or neglected Filipino children in need of alternative family environment. .

In a directive, Sueno urges governors and mayors to undertake activities to encourage adoptive families to undergo legal adoption to protect welfare of adopted children from discrimination.

“Local execs should take the lead in strengthening the adoption advocacy campaign in order to safeguard the welfare and protection of every child,” he said.

Sueno directed all regional directors and field officers to cause the widest dissemination of the said issuance to all local government units and others concerned within their respective jurisdictions.

The declaration of the month of February as the Adoption Consciousness Month is in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a legally-binding international agreement setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of every child, regardless of their race, religion or abilities.

A report from the United Nations’ Children’s Rights & Emergency Relief Organization says that about 1.8 million children in the Philippines  or more than 1% of its entire population are “abandoned or neglected.” DMS