Article 377 - Family Code and Case: Angchay vs. Republic, G.R. No. L-28507

 

Article 377

          Usurpation of a name and surname may be the subject of an action for damages and other relief.

 

JOSEFINA ANG CHAY and MERCEDITA ANG CHAY, petitioners-appellees, vs. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, oppositor-appellant.

G.R. No. L-28507 July 31, 1970

Facts:

          Paz Sta. Ana, a Filipino citizen, was the widow of one Jose Hernandez. She contracted marriage for the second time in 1934, with Alejandro Ang Chay, a Chinese. Of this second marriage, two daughters, Josefina Ang Chay and Mercedita Ang Chay, were born. In 1939, however the spouses Paz and Alejandro agreed to live separately from each other, with the two children remaining with the mother.

          Paz enrolled the two girls in school as "Josefina Hernandez" and "Mercedita Hernandez". They graduated from college, obtained employment, paid income taxes, and exercised voting privilege under the same name. The two had always been of the belief that they were Filipinos until January 1966, when their mother disclosed to them that their father is a Chinese and their true surname is Ang Chay. Whereupon, petitioners executed statements electing Philippine citizenship and took in the oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines, which papers were duly registered in the Civil Register of Manila on 9 February 1966, following the Opinion of the Secretary of Justice allowing delayed registration of elections of Philippine citizenship in certain meritorious cases.

          On 23 February 1966, Josefina and Mercedita file a petition praying for the change of their respective names to Josefina Hernandez and Mercedita Hernandez. They would like to use Filipino names by having their surnames "Ang Chay changed to "Hernandez", the surname that they have been using from the time they started schooling until they finished their studies and went into employment, and by which surname they have come to be known by everybody.

          After hearing, judgment was entered for the petitioners, and their surnames were decreed changed from "Ang Chay to "Hernandez", for all legal intent and purposes. Republic of the Philippines appealed on the issue of the propriety and reasonableness of the ground for petitioners' action for change of their name.

Issue:

          Should petitioners be allowed to continue using the surname Hernandez?

Held:

          Yes. Change of name is not a matter of right; that being a privilege, before it can be authorized, the person petitioning for such change must first show proper cause or compelling reason therefor. And what may constitute as proper and compelling reason shall depend on the particular circumstances of each case, and upon the discretion of the trial court.

          In the present proceeding, there is valid reason to justify the continued use by petitioners of the names by which they have been known, and with which they have always conducted, in good faith, their various social and business activities. Petitioners had no knowledge whatsoever that their father is a Chinese and that their surnames properly should be Ang Chay. Petitioners have been carrying the family name, "Hernandez"; that they finished their schooling and got employments, voted in the local and national elections, and paid their income taxes, under that surname.

          It is not difficult to understand that for them to start using the family name "Ang Chay at this time would cause no little amount of confusion and trouble in the lives of these girls, who do not appear to have any hand at all in creating the situation they now find themselves in. Besides there is nothing on the record to intimate that herein petitioners' use of the surname "Hernandez" would cause damage or prejudice, either to the government or to any other private party, including their mother's children by the first marriage. For, as this Court has succinctly declared, a mere change of name would not cause a change in one's existing family relations, nor create new family rights and duties where none exists before. Neither would it affect a person's legal capacity, civil status or citizenship. What would only be altered is the word or group of words by which he is identified and distinguished from the rest of his fellow men. Thus, this Court, in some meritorious cases, granted the applications of naturalized Filipinos for change of their foreign names to Filipino-sounding ones, in order that the handicap in their social and business dealings, posed by their alien names, may be removed and thus enable their full integration into the Philippine society where they now belong. There is more compelling reason, therefore, for the granting of this petition and allowing the use of Filipino names by herein petitioners, whose mother is a Filipino, and who have been reared and schooled, and have actually lived, as Filipinos.