DSWD: Babies for adoption on Facebook

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is working with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and law enforcement agencies to track down groups behind 48 fake Facebook accounts that claim to facilitate illegal online adoption.

In an online forum on legal adoption organized by the DSWD last Saturday as part of Adoption Consciousness Week, Wilma Naviamos of the department’s Program Management Bureau said they have already monitored and tracked down the fake Facebook accounts.

“DSWD has actually monitored 48 fake FB accounts saying they facilitate online adoption. We have reported this actually and coordinated with NBI and police authorities, to track these identified accounts,” Naviamos said.

“We would like to inform everyone not to engage in these fake FB accounts that facilitate online adoption. We would like to share that in our celebration, we do not encourage online adoption because that is illegal,” she added in mixed English and Filipino.

Lawyer Bernadette Abejo, executive director of the Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB) who was also a panelist in the online adoption forum, said they have complained of these social media accounts that claim to process online adoption which has been hard to track.

“Because it is illegal, we cannot track it. It will only come out when there is a problem already or when somebody files a case or a complaint,” Abejo said.

“Illegal adopton is difficult to track. If you will open your Facebook right now, there are so many sites claiming to be able to do adoptions. We can only complain so much and try to shut all these sites down, but without (the help of), say, Facebook itself, we cannot close (them),” she added.

The DSWD is pushing for prospective parents who want to provide abandoned, neglected and surrendered children in need of permanent families a home to go through the legal adoption process.

Glenda Relova, DSWD assistant secretary for statutory programs and the Philippines’ alternate representative to the ICAB, said the DSWD continues to promote the legal adoption program as a means of providing abandoned, neglected and surrendered children a permanent home.

In 2020, despite the lockdowns and restrictions on movements, they continued to work on the processing of domestic and inter-country adoptions of abandoned, neglected and surrendered children in need of permanent families, according to Relova.

“Nevertheless, through our combined determination to provide children in need of a family, despite the limitations in movement during the lockdown in 2020, a total of 487 certifications declaring a child legally available for adoption was issued, 278 children were placed out for domestic adoption and 208 were issued with intercountry adoption clearance,” she said.

Naviamos said the DSWD handled 312 cases of domestic adoption cases in 2019 and 278 in 2020.

“From 2009 to 2020, we had 2,815 domestic adoption cases. For cleared children for inter-country adoption... for 2009 to 2020, we already have cleared children numbering 4,396,” she said.

“For children who were matched for inter-country adoption, for 2009 to 2020, we had an equivalent of 3,819,” she added.