Found, Founder, Foundling
It has been a few weeks now when the term “foundling’ was introduced through the media. Thanks to Sen. Grace Poe and the controversies hounding her — like her citizenship– this word would not have been known by many.
I have come across this term when I was trying to register for a late registration for my birth certificate. I presented my information and my parents info – when I was born, when they got married, if I had siblings – the whole bit.
When they saw all these, they asked me how my mother could have given birth at the age of 50 years old. I was tempted to say I was a menopausal baby however I had a brother who was younger than me by 5 years….so I thought…Guinness Book of World Records? No, I’m sure that wouldn’t fly.
With the doubts strewn all over their faces, it was best for me to tell the truth.
So I did – a summary of the truth: that I was born in an orphanage run by nuns ; that my biological mother agreed to have me adopted ; that my adoptive mother got me after 3 days of my biological mother giving birth. And the rest is history.
When I finished my story, the two Manila City Hall employees said in unison, “Ah adult foundling…punta ka kay Raquel sa DSWD”. In my mind, “What foundling? Is there even such a word?” So off we went to Raquel at the DSWD office within Manila City Hall.
I repeated the same story to Raquel who may have not believed me at first.
Thank God for my mom who kept a diary of what went on from the time that the nuns were telling her about a woman who was about to give birth to the time that they got me from the orphanage, Raquel finally advised that she will be working on my case.
It was explained to me that since I was technically abandoned , I was a foundling since it was the nuns who “found” me and took care of me before I was handed over to my adoptive parents.
She told me we needed a relative who could vouch for the information I gave her. The only relative I knew who could vouch for the truthfulness of my story was my mom’s nephew.
DSWD was supposed to visit him at his home for the interview but it was good that they agreed to just let him sign the papers. My baby picture was also published in the papers (not the Manila Bulletin kind) to find out if someone would recognize me and may still have a claim on me.
Yeah right…after more than 40 years someone will recognize the baby in the picture saying that I was theirs. Great!
Just to satisfy the curiosity of anyone interested, no one came up to claim that I was their child.
Anyway, according to Raquel, when all these are done, I will not be having a birth certificate but a foundling certificate.
I just don’t know when I will be getting this so-called foundling certificate as it has been almost a year when we consulted with them.
Paging DSWD.
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