change surname

Under the law, “[l]egitimated children shall enjoy the same rights as legitimate children” (Article 170, Family Code of the Philippines). One of these rights is “to bear the surname of the father and the mother.” (Article 174 (1), Id.) Legitimation is a remedy by means of which those who in fact were not born in wedlock and should, therefore, be considered illegitimate, are, by fiction, considered legitimate, it being supposed that they were born when their parents were already validly married (1 Manresa 550, as cited on p. 251, Handbook on Family Code of the Philippines, Alicia V. Sempio-Diy).