MANILA, Philippines - Minor clerical or typographical errors in birth certificates may soon be corrected without need for a court order, if a bill pending in the House of Representatives is passed into law.

House Bill 5445, authored by Aklan Rep. Florencio Miraflores, particularly allows the facilitation of correction of errors on sex and date of birth.

In an article on the House of Representatives website, Miraflores said inaccurate entries in the civil register remain a major source of inconvenience for individuals who were not responsible for these errors.

He said requiring these individuals to go to court for proper remedy only worsens their plight.

Miraflores noted a simple "x" on the wrong line or entry causes grave and serious problems to the registrant, while an applicant for a marriage license might be denied if a typist marked "x" on the wrong gender.

Similarly, the official said a registrant, whose date of birth was erroneously entered may encounter problems, particularly in the processing of papers for school enrollment, foreign travel, employment, and for retirement purposes.

I think many people will be happy with this new bill because it is true that registrant usually encounter errors with sex and birthdate that was made by the registrar and then it's the registrant who suffer inconvenience and spend a lot of money just to change one entry in the birth certificate. So if this bill will be implemented then it will be just easy for people who have errors in the birth certifiicate to change it and they would be spending less. My brother will benefit with this because he doesn't have a gender in his birth certificate and then his birthday is wrong. Hope it will be implemented soon.