THE HOUSE Committee on Welfare of Children has approved a substitute measure to 15 bills that will strengthen and codify the country’s alternative child care laws.

The committee headed by Tingog Siniragan Party-list Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez agreed to endorse to the plenary the proposed Child Care Act that will reorganize the Inter-Country Adoption Board into the National Authority for Child Care.

In her sponsorship speech on the substitute bill, Nueva Ecija Rep. Rosanna Vergara, head of the technical working group that crafted the measure, said position papers submitted by stakeholders were taken into consideration.

“We have been privileged to receive a total of 15 position papers and four presentations from 16 stakeholders. The TWG also looked into the status and procedures on the administrative aspect of the domestic adoption process, inter-country domestic adoption process, as well as other forms of alternative child care,” Vergara said.

TUCP Partylist Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza expressed hope that the Senate will act on the bill once it is transmitted by the House.

Among the salient features of the proposed Child Care Act are the strategic shift of the adoption process from being a judicial undertaking to an administrative process and the creation of the National Authority for Child Care.

The agency to be created will be a quasi-judicial body. It will carry out a streamlined and less tedious process of adoption but at the same time find ways to protect prospective adoptees from child abusers.

Under the bill, the personal appearance of the prospective adoptors before the NACC will be required.