2. Prohibition on Collateral Attack on Personal Status through Correction of Entries

Civil Status

GR: Parties cannot compromise on the civil status of persons

XPN: The law does not prohibit a simple and full recognition of the status of another, not amounting to compromise.

A possible objection to the promise of the defendants to give the plaintiff his share in the estate as an acknowledged natural child is that such agreement may run counter to article 1814, (old) Civil Code [Now Art. 2035, NCC]. However, it does not appear from the complaint that the defendants ever impugned or denied the plaintiff's status as an acknowledged natural child; on the contrary, according to the complaint, the defendants admitted such status by promising to give the plaintiff his lawful share in the estate of the father. There having been, in accordance with the allegations in the complaint, no controversy over the condition of the plaintiff as acknowledged natural child, the agreement between the plaintiff and defendants alleged in par. 7 of the complaint, if shown at the trial, is not a compromise at all, and is not frowned upon by the legislator in article 1814 of the Civil Code. [Lajom v. Viola, G.R. No. L-47475 (1942)]