Spec Pro Class 2020

EDGARDO A. TIJING and BIENVENIDA R TIJING, petitioners,
vs.
COURT OF APPEALS (Seventh Division) and ANGELITA DIAMANTE, respondents.

 

G.R. No. 125901            March 8, 2001

 

QUISUMBING, J.:

FACTS:

For review is the decision of the Court of Appeals dated March 6, 1996, in CA-G.R. SP No. 39056, reversing the decision of the Regional Trial Court in a petition for habeas corpus of Edgardo Tijing, Jr., allegedly the child of petitioners.

 

Petitioners are husband and wife have six children and the youngest is Edgardo Tijing, Jr., who was born on April 27, 1989, at the clinic of midwife and registered nurse Lourdes Vasquez in Sta. Ana, Manila. Petitioner Bienvenida served as the laundrywoman of private respondent Angelita Diamante, then a resident of Tondo, Manila.

 

Petitioners filed a petition for habeas corpus in order to recover their son from respondent and presented witnesses to substantiate their petition. Respondent claimed on the other hand that she is the natural mother of the child.

 

The trial court held in favor of the petitioners and granted the petition for habeas corpus.concluded that since Angelita and her common-law husband could not have children, the alleged birth of John Thomas Lopez is an impossibility. The trial court also held that the minor and Bienvenida showed strong facial similarity. Accordingly, it ruled that Edgardo Tijing, Jr., and John Thomas Lopez are one and the same person who is the natural child of petitioners.

 

On appeal, the CA reversed and set aside the decision rendered by the trial court. The appellate court expressed its doubts on the propriety of the habeas corpus.

 

ISSUE:

Whether or not  habeas corpus is the proper remedy to regain custody of a minor.

 

HELD:

Yes. The writ of habeas corpus extends to all cases of illegal confinement or detention by which any person is deprived of his liberty, or by which the rightful custody of any person is withheld from the person entitled thereto.12 Thus, it is the proper legal remedy to enable parents to regain the custody of a minor child even if the latter be in the custody of a third person of his own free will. It may even be said that in custody cases involving minors, the question of illegal and involuntary restraint of liberty is not the underlying rationale for the availability of the writ as a remedy. Rather, it is prosecuted for the purpose of determining the right of custody over a child.13 It must be stressed too that in habeas corpus proceedings, the question of identity is relevant and material, subject to the usual presumptions including those as to identity of the person.

 

It was  ruled that subject minor is indeed the son of petitioners. The writ of habeas corpus is proper to regain custody of said child.