The short answer is no – particularly if the child is younger than seven years old, and not unless the mother is found to be an unfit parent.
An illegitimate child is born of parents who weren’t legally married during the time of the child’s birth, and who continue to be unmarried to each other.
By law, the mother of the illegitimate offspring has sole parental authority and may keep the child in her care. This rule applies even if the father acknowledges paternity. Though the court may require the father to provide support, the court will not grant full custody.
Working abroad does not constitute abandonment
In the case of Briones vs. Miguel, GR 156343, Oct. 18, 2004, the court chose to uphold the mother’s custody although she had left the Philippines to work in Japan. She was able to eventually bring the child to live with her.
It is stated in Article 213 of the Family Code that children younger than seven years old can’t be separated from their mother unless the court finds persuasive reasons to do so.
In Briones vs. Miguel, the court ruled that: “Only the most compelling of reasons, such as the mother’s unfitness to exercise sole parental authority, shall justify her deprivation of parental authority and the award of custody to someone else.”
In previous custody cases, the grounds for another to be deprived of custody and parental authority have been:
- Neglect or abandonment
- Maltreatment of the child
- Immorality
- Unemployment
- Habitual drunkenness
- Drug addiction
- Communicable disease
- Insanity
There are two things that determine the fitness of a parent:
- The capacity to attend to the physical, social, moral, and educational welfare of the child
- The capacity to give the child a healthy environment, in addition to physical and financial support that take into consideration the resources and the social and moral situation of the parent
Leaving for work in another country does not count as neglect or abandonment. Having entrusted the child with the child’s maternal grandparents is not grounds for removing custody from the mother either.
Likewise, the mother cannot transfer or renounce custody of the child unless authorized by law.
Fathers of illegitimate children, however, do have visitation rights that cannot be denied by the mother or the child’s maternal grandparents.
Visitation rights
In the case of Silva v. Court of Appeals, the court upheld the visitorial rights of a father over his illegitimate children in lieu of the inherent and natural right of the parent over their children, one that is protected by the constitution. The rule applies even if the parents are estranged and have lost affection for each other, with the premise that their feelings for and attachment to their children remain unchanged.
The law and the court will not allow their affinity for their children suffer, not unless there is a grave, real, or imminent threat to the illegitimate child’s well-being.
For more information on family law litigation, get in touch with Duran & Duran-Schulze here. The attorneys at Duran & Duran-Schulze offer a free case evaluation for your convenience.
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22 Responses
My son has an illegitimate child whose mother lives in France with my grandchild’s siblings from different fathers. I am the paternal grandpa. After giving birth both mother and child lived with us for one and a half years, we took good care of them since the father, my son lives with us. My grandchild lived with her maternal grandmother along with her female live in partner and nine dogs, no jobs and lives on support from my grandchild’s mom from France. My son gives a monthly support not much though he is earning not much. But me and my wife visits her in their province once in while since it is still pandemic. My grandchild is five years old and when we talked to her she mentioned abuse like shouting at her, food thrown on her, we found bruises, but of course the child said nothing of the bruises. For a while when we visited her in 2022, we brought her to the province in September of 2020 by their insistence that the child should be brought to them or else they will sue us despite the pandemic. We applied for permits from our city hall to bring her to their province. In July of 2022 we visited her their to our dismay the. Child is thin and sick for days she had fever. The mother allowed us to take the child to our home province. She stayed with us for a month and a half, my grandchild was checked by her pedia her and found she had hyperacidity. Also the maternal grandmom’s partner is suffering from a breast illness. We would go over there to take good care of our grandchild whenever they go to the hospital for supposedly a breast operation but postponed due to a toxic thyroidism. We hear stories from their neighbors of shouting at the child. Please advise us we do not know what to do, can the father of child borrow her and take good care of her while the maternal grandmom takes care of her partner? My son wants to send her to school in our province.
The mother of my child is trying to keep him away from me for no reason.
Good day,
I am an illegitimate father, and I have a question, what if the mother is working in another region and leave my child to her sister which also has 4 children, and the mother of my son would easily get angry if i borrow him,
can i get the child even f 1 week or 1 month time, even if she would not allow it? (note: her sister would be glad everytime i take my son with me in my home; also i give full support of the him)
The mother’s husband maltreating the the children by saying awful things and even peeping. And the mother’s step father tried to rape the oldest daughter in several occassions, started when the girl is 12 y.o. she would wake up that the “Lolo’s mouth is in her mouth and trying to remove her underwear. She told the incident to the mother and to the grandmother “both of them sez ” its okay i will talk to him and dont tell anyone, its nothing sya namann gumagastos sa lahat ng bagay ditp sa bahay”. 2019 when the mother’s oldest brother whi is a pastor in Singapore called the biological father and asked gim to get the 2 girls (aged 15 and 16 then)
what if the mother leave her child to her live in partner while shes working abroad can the father get the child?