By Atty. Eduardo T. Reyes III
Barring extraordinary or extremely compelling circumstances, the custody of a minor cannot be taken away from the mother.
Under the Family Code, joint parental authority is exercised by parents over their legitimate children. However, as to children born to parents who are unmarried, preferably called “non-marital children”, sole parental authority belongs to the mother. (Articles 211 and 176 of the Family Code and as discussed in Masbate v. Relucio, G.R. No. 235498, July 30, 2018 and Alag, Jr. v. Villamor, G.R. No. 250849, March 9, 2020).
In the case of Teresita Sagala-Eslao v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 116773, which came down on January 16, 1997, there was a tug-of-war over the custody of a minor child. This came after the death of the father such that the grandmother entreated to have temporary custody to assuage the pain of losing her own son. Meantime, the widow (mother of the child) met someone and fell in love and decided to join her new love abroad.
After settling in a foreign country, the mother returned to the Philippines to get custody of her child. This did not sit well with the grandmother who, this time, had claimed that the mother had already “abandoned” her child and thus the grandmother was now entitled to custody.
In deciding the case in favor of the mother, Teresita Sagala-Eslao v. Court of Appeals concluded that “the right of parents to the custody of their minor children is one of the natural rights incident to parenthood, a right supported by law and sound public policy. The right is an inherent one, which is not created by the state or decisions of the courts, but derives from the nature of the parental relationship”. (Teresita Sagala-Eslao v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 116773, January 16, 1997).
Further, it was held in said case that “. . . [Parental authority] is a mass of rights and obligations which the law grants to parents for the purpose of the children’s physical preservation and development, as well as the cultivation of their intellect and the education of their heart and senses. As regards parental authority, there is no power, but a task; no complex of rights, but a sum of duties; no sovereignty but a sacred trust for the welfare of the minor”.(Teresita Sagala-Eslao v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 116773 January 16, 1997 citing Santos, Sr. v. Court of Appeals, 242 SCRA 407).
A grandmother’s love is surely unconditional and should never be undervalued. However, why is jurisprudence consistent in giving preference to the mother?
Let me rephrase, why is the mother’s presence in the life of a child primordial?
This calls to mind an Aesop’s fable entitled The Crab and His Mother as retold in The Moral Compass by William J. Bennett (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, Rockefeller Center, NY Copyright, 1995), thus:
“A mother crab and her son went scurrying over the sand. The mother chastised her child: ‘Stop walking sideways! It’s much more becoming to stroll straightforward’. And the young crab replied: ‘I will, Mother Dear, just as soon as I see how. Show me the straight way, and I’ll walk in it behind you’.”
Indeed, a mother is the child’s first teacher.
A mother must take a glimpse upon the valley of death’s shadow during childbirth just to bring the child as a bundle of happiness into the world. It definitely does not end there. The mother will show her child how to take those little steps and light the way throughout life.
So why our mothers? Why not.
Our mothers are our first teachers and our constant teachers.
They are a spring of love, too.
For life.
Happy Mother’s Day to my loving Mom, Mrs. Bobbie T. Reyes, and to all mothers who had taken the time to read this piece.
(The author is the senior partner of ET Reyes III & Associates– a law firm based in Iloilo City. He is a litigation attorney, a law professor and a law book author. His website is etriiilaw.com).
