Spain and the Philippines have their own bilateral framework for international adoption, on top of the 1993 Hague Convention: the Protocol on international adoption between the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of the Philippines, signed in Manila on 12 November 2002. That gives the process a fairly defined path, with one specific Philippine body as the counterpart. This article focuses on the documentary side — it doesn't replace guidance from the accredited agency (ECAI) or social services.
The ICAB: the Philippine central authority
On the Philippine side, the competent body is the Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB). On the Spanish side, communication with the ICAB is channelled through the relevant regional central authority (depending on where the adoptive parents live), which receives and forwards the file's reports.
Documents the ICAB requires, translated and legalised
- Birth certificate of the child, issued by the PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority), translated and legalised/apostilled.
- Affidavit of Consent to Adoption — the document by which the ICAB gives consent to the full adoption. It has to be sent to Spain translated (sworn translation) and legalised.
- Suitability certificate of the adoptive parents, issued in Spain — this travels the other way, translated into English (the ICAB's usual working language) for the Philippine file.
- Psychosocial report on the adoptive parents, also translated for the ICAB.
The three follow-up reports: the obligation that doesn't end in the Philippines
The ICAB requires three post-adoption follow-up reports, prepared by Spanish social services at 2, 4 and 6 months after the child's arrival in Spain. Each of those reports needs to be translated and sent to the Philippines — the part of the process most often overlooked, since it arrives months after the family feels the procedure is already finished.
Registering the child with Spain's Civil Registry
Once the adoption is completed in the Philippines, the child is registered with Spain's Civil Registry using the Philippine adoption decision and the PSA birth certificate, both translated and apostilled — the same path we described for inheriting from the Philippines, where the PSA certificate and its apostille follow the same pattern.
Common mistakes
- Not translating the Affidavit of Consent to Adoption, a document sometimes mistaken for a purely internal Philippine formality when it's actually needed in the Spanish file.
- Forgetting the three follow-up reports, which arrive as an obligation months after the adoption.
- Sending the Spanish suitability certificate to the ICAB untranslated into English, delaying the file in the Philippines.
- Confusing the PSA with the local Philippine civil registry, which doesn't carry the same weight for this procedure.
Related pages
- International adoption in Spain: documents and sworn translation
- Inheriting from the Philippines in Spain
- Philippine NBI Clearance: apostille and sworn translation
- Sworn translation in Madrid · Sworn translation in Barcelona
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