How to File a Clerical Correction For Your Birth Certificate

It took me 20 months to finally get a hold of my birth certificate copy with its correction. From the long time of waiting, patience in acquiring the necessary documents and the fees, coming to and from our local Civil Registry Office for a followup, it’s totally worth it.

I first learned about my birth certificate clerical error when I had to process my passport and one of the requirements needed is a PSA Copy of Birth Certificate. I was totally clueless that my certificate, the PSA Copy and the local copy are different from each other. What’s more confusing is, I thought that the PSA Copy is just a copy of your local birth certificate but what’s even more surprising is it is not and I got a double registration from different cities. Que horror. To tell you honestly, I was appalled after seeing these documents on hand because in my 20 years of existence this came to me and my parents didn’t tell me about it. All the while I was submitting birth certificate copies to schools and other facilities, I handed them a local copy from my hometown, but I didn’t know I had a different copy from the other town. How did it happen? Originally, I was born in Makati but we moved into Batangas several days after mom just gave birth and even though I was registered in Makati, upon arriving at Batangas my grandparents also registered me. So this is what brought me to file a petition for my birth certificate clerical correction just so I can finally use the correct names. 

First thing I did is of course inquire about the necessary documents required for the petition process. I also need to be assured of if I can file this petition in our Local Civil Registry Office so that they can help me forward it to Makati LCRO as a Migrant Petition. This will lessen my travel to Manila but the difference is the duration process. They claim that it usually takes several months if I filed the petition directly but not a 100% assurance because it will still depend on the clerical correction needed. Same fees on filing the petition except for the shipping fee of documents back and forth to the LCRO’s respectively. I also searched Makati Government’s website regarding the petition process and also called their office just to be sure of. Please take note that the requirements may or may not differ from other LCRO so I advise you to call beforehand or take a visit to your LCRO before filing a petition.

Clerical errors that I filed:

1. My Maiden Name technically my mother's Surname

2. First Name of my mom

Requirements:

1. Certified true copies of documents to be corrected from PSA and LCRO (2 copies)

2. Birth and Marriage Certificates of the document owner

3. Community Tax Certificate of petitioner and at least one valid ID

4. Authentic documents to prove the correct data/information (baptismal certificate, voter’s affidavit or employment record or other accepted documents that will support claims in the petition which is in my case I acquired an affidavit bearing that my mother’s name is not the one written in my birth certificate and the affidavit is signed by two older witness to testify that I am stating the correct entries)

5. Birth Certificate/Voter’s Affidavit record of parents

6. Marriage Contract of Parents

7. Birth Certificates of siblings

8. Birth Certificate of children, if married and with children

After securing the necessary requirements, I went to our LCRO and filed the Clerical Correction Error Migrant Petition. They handed me a form wherein I will fill out the necessary entries needed to be corrected and the LCRO made a document to be forwarded to Makati LCRO for filing. Take note that you should be checking the necessary data before sealing the enveloping to avoid another mistake. Please be careful when filling out the form and double check everything.

Fees and Duration 

(Please note that this may vary depending on your town, LCRO and courier * ):

* We used the LBC Courier for the Migrant Petition to Makati LCRO

Filing Fee and Shipping of Documents back to your LCRO 1700

Pesopak Charge for the filing fee 136

Document Pouch Delivery Fee 120

2nd phase after the petition is sent back to our LCRO

Covid-19 happened so the process duration of the petition was longer than expected and after I have my documents ready for the final process, I was given an option to go directly at PSA Main Office at Manila or if I wanted to file it again so our LCRO will forward it to our nearest PSA Office which is in Lipa (I can also directly go there if I wanted to) and PSA Lipa will then forward it to PSA Main. 

Since I rarely travel and go outside, I didn’t risk my health just so I can minimize the duration process. I have waited long enough and it is practical and health wise if I just filed it again via our LCRO. I just need to send it again via LBC to PSA Lipa with an attached paper from our LCRO. 

Document Pouch Delivery Fee 130

Finality

When I followed up my petition at Batangas LCRO 3 months (supposedly 6-9 months of waiting period) after sending it to PSA Main, they told me that I can now request my corrected Birth Certificate at the nearest PSA Outlet. So I called PSA Lipa if they can provide me with a PSA Copy of the corrected Birth Certificate online, or if they can see in their database the status of my PSA Copy. PSA Lipa CSR told me that their database shows already that my PSA Copy is with correction. Although I can request a PSA Copy online via Serbilis, they also advised me that they are not fully sure if I can receive the updated and corrected copy because they are not sure if PSA Main is already centralized (This makes me think that a database should be centralized right?) So it is up to me if I want to go to PSA Lipa to secure the PSA in half day process or take the risk of securing my PSA Copy through PSA Serbilis online with 7 days processing time. I followed my friend’s vlog on securing a PSA through Serbilis (https://youtu.be/igutFLUTFOs) but I used a BDO Online payment method instead of GCash. 

PSA Serbilis Fee 330

  

Fees stated does not include the fees I used to secure the necessary requirement on top but usually birth certificate copies range from 155 each copy, xerox copies, and affidavit is less than 100 if I am not mistaken. More or less you need to secure at least 3000 for your whole petition process.

Timeline of the whole Clerical Correction Error process from filing to securing my PSA Copy

April 2019 - Securing my requirements 

May 2019 - Filed the Migrant petition from Batangas LCRO to Makati LCRO

Sept 2019 - Migrant Petition forwarded to PSA Main for Annotation

July 2020 - Makati LCRO forwarded the Annotated Original Copy to Batangas LCRO

August 2020 - Annotated Original Copy was forwarded to PSA Lipa and forwarding it to PSA Main for finality of the document

December 2020 - Confirmation from Batangas LCRO and PSA Lipa that my document is ready and with correction

December 7, 2020 - PSA Serbilis Request of PSA Copy of Birth Certificate

December 14, 2020 - Finally got my corrected PSA Copy of Birth Certificate with Correction

So that was the whole process of my Birth Certificate Clerical Correction via Migrant Petition. It was long overdue, long waiting period but totally worth it. It feels like I’ve been born again when I held my birth certificate finally!

If you have any questions, comment down below and I will try my best to answer them or if you wanted a vlog of the whole process since it is too long to read (yeah I know but I need to write this clearly before I forgot the details), please send me a DM or comment too.