What Religion For My Daughter?,

[wombatphil]

Hey thanks guys

Off topic but, ... My ancestors and family name come from Devon, hmmm

[shiredevon]

My surname is devonshire wombat, i've traced the family back to beaconsfield but for sure we must have originated from devon.

[wombatphil]

My surname is devonshire wombat, i've traced the family back to beaconsfield but for sure we must have originated from devon.

Mines 'Keen' and it was a strong willed Methodist preacher, Samuel Keen and his new wife migrated to Sth Australia in about 1851 and helped develope that church around the place. Mum's mob came as free settlers to Sth Australia (the only State in Oz that didn't have convict influx) in 1836, on the 2nd Free Settler Fleet, arriving a few months after the first. They were from Stonehenge/Wiltshire area, 9 brothers, all sheperds. Anyway, it's just interesting and doesn't really mean a real lot in this day and age, but nice to know one's roots hey. Seeya mate.

[MikeeW]

I think you'll find that the baptism document is used to establish whether the child is Philippino. That is, it is considered one of several documents which can be used for things like passport, adoption, school admittance and such as that.

Having a civil wedding almost certainly does not preclude having a baptism. This is most likely someone's misunderstanding.

There may be some issues having to do with rules of various churches/faiths. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a civil wedding may not a "marriage" according to the doctrine of the faith. Thus, any child born from the union of the couple, may not baptised until the couple has their marriage sanctified by the faith/church.

All of this has no meaning if you find yourself facing a bureaucrat who insists upon some document. I think you'll find the tail wagging the dog a lot in government agencies here. If some clerk decides something is a rule, and refuses to process the documents, well, you need to find a way around the clerk or produce the required document.

A while back, I had completed the adoption of my child. Everything was done except the process where the local registrar sends a new amended birth record to the NSO. This is the only way the adoption is complete and final. The process is simple. Give the local registrar the documents from the court, have them reviewed for accuracy etc, send them to the NSO. Of course, all of this requires various fees and even sending the stuff to the NSO is paid for by the applicant (the local government doesn't trust the Philippine Postal system, so it has to be sent by courier). Again, simple, straightforward. Perfect opportunity for the local clerk to manipulate the process.........which happened to us. She"lost" the papers. Sadly for us we didn't learn of this until many months had passed. What was supposed to happen was we were supposed to speak with the clerk who would "search" for the documents, find them and then complete the process. A little money under the table would help.

We discovered all of this by chance when we discovered the clerk had been reassigned (not fired) and all the other staff told us just what a crook she was and so on. Even her boss came out, confirmed what had happened and so on. Problem solved, right? Nope. We had to go to the court, get all the documents again, give them to the new clerk and then the process would be completed....after fees paid again. As if that wasn't enough, they had a mandatory ten day waiting period before we could send the documents (some sort of workload rule). We had to wait.

All of this tale is to point out that the old saying holds true......"There's no tyranny like petty tyranny".

[i am bob]

I asked a friend of mine who is a Catholic priest here in Canada about this. What he basically told me is that the Philippines seems to have their own interpretation of how to operate the church and sometimes do things that the rest of the (Catholic) world will think is unusual - ie: as per your story. He did say that, if you approach the priest, it may turn out to be a misunderstanding as "no Catholic Priest will turn away a person seeking God through the one true church". (May I add that he said this with a wink as we have had many discussions not so much about religion but the operation of various churches while jamming and doing Black Sabbath covers during our younger years. He jokes that our discussions were the reason he became a priest.)