CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga (PIA) — The Regional Alternative Child Care Office (RACCO) Region 3 is strengthening its advocacy on legal adoption and foster care as part of this year’s Adoption and Alternative Child Care Week (AACCW) celebration.
RACCO 3 Social Welfare Officers Kim Rodam Alcazar and Fahad Canayao explained the agency’s mandate and promoted legal pathways for providing permanent or temporary families to children in need.
“Adoption is both a social and legal process that provides a permanent family to a child who has been abandoned, surrendered, or orphaned,” Alcazar said.
Based on latest data from RACCO 3, 48 children in Central Luzon have been declared legally available for adoption, and five have already been placed with permanent families.
Meanwhile, a total of 1,171 children are currently housed in residential care facilities in the region.
Canayao, meanwhile, outlined four main sub-programs under alternative child care including regular foster care, kinship care, family-like care, and residential care.
He clarified that unlike adoption, foster care is temporary and does not grant legal parental status.
“Foster care allows families to care for a child while the government works on either reintegrating them with their biological families or finding a permanent adoptive home,” he said.
RACCO 3 also encouraged prospective adoptive or foster families to visit their office or their local social welfare offices to begin the application process.
Under Republic Act 11642, adoption in the Philippines has shifted to a purely administrative process, making it faster and more affordable.
RACCO 3 is the regional arm of the National Authority for Child Care, an agency created under Republic Act 11642 which facilitates domestic and inter-country adoption, foster care, and other forms of alternative child care. (MJSC/MAGP, PIA Region 3-Pampanga GIP)
