The Department of Social Welfare and Development will go after fathers who refuse to give financial support to their estranged children, DSWD Secretary Erwin Tulfo said in a television interview.
Tulfo told “The Mangahas Interviews” that he wants the DSWD to go after these men while vowing to help single mothers struggling to make ends meet amid a lack of child support from their former partners.
“One of those who I want to help are single parents who are having problems with the fathers of their children who don’t want to give financial support. The DSWD will help these women because they don’t have anyone to support them,” the former broadcaster said.
“I will encourage them to come to the DSWD, we will help them out. We will write letters. If not, we will file cases against the father of the children to give child support because it is under the law now,” Tulfo said.
“Many probably don’t know this, (but) men think that just because they’re not married, they’re now free (from providing child support). As long as their names are on the birth certificate, they are not free from their obligation. They have to pay for child support even if they are not married or they just impregnated the woman,” he added.
Republic Act 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004 criminalizes “depriving or threatening to deprive the woman or her children of financial support legally due to her or her family, or deliberately providing the woman’s children insufficient financial support.”
If found liable, persons violating the law may be sanctioned with jail time of at least six months and one day to six years.