Short answer. No. Adoption is not a purchase that can be returned. The law is explicit that adoption, being in the best interest of the child, shall not be subject to rescission by the adopters. A change of heart, a new marriage, or a family quarrel is not a legal ground to undo it.
What the law says
Adoption, being in the best interest of the child, shall not be subject to rescission by the adopter(s)
RA 8552, Section 19 — Grounds For Rescission. Read the full provision →
The door only opens one way
Rescission of an adoption exists in the law, but it belongs to the adopted person, not to the adopters. A petition to rescind is filed by the adoptee, and only on serious grounds committed by the adopter — repeated maltreatment, an attempt on the adoptee's life, sexual assault or violence, or abandonment and failure to meet parental obligations. There is no matching list that lets a parent hand the child back. The provision closes that route in one sentence: Adoption, being in the best interest of the child, shall not be subject to rescission by the adopter(s).
Why the law is built this way
The reason is stated inside the rule itself: adoption exists in the best interest of the child. A child who has been given a family, a name and legal parents should not live under the threat that the parents might one day undo it because circumstances became inconvenient. Allowing adopters to walk away would turn a permanent status into a conditional arrangement, which is exactly what adoption is meant not to be. So the permanence is deliberate.
What parents can and cannot do instead
This does not mean adopters are without any remedy if a grown adopted child behaves gravely against them. The same provision preserves a narrower tool: the adopter may disinherit the adoptee for causes provided in Article 919 of the Civil Code. That affects inheritance, and only for the specific legal causes listed there — it does not dissolve the parent-child relationship or erase the adoption. Everything else that flows from being a parent, from support obligations to the child's status, remains. Disinheritance is a targeted consequence for defined misconduct, not a back door to cancelling the adoption itself.
If the relationship has truly broken down
Families do reach breaking points, and it is fair to want to understand your options honestly. The starting point is that you cannot simply revoke the adoption because feelings changed. What the law offers instead are specific, fact-bound remedies — disinheritance for defined causes, and the ordinary protections available to anyone facing threats or harm. Because those remedies are narrow and carry their own requirements, an adopter in real distress should describe the actual situation to a lawyer rather than assume the adoption can be reversed.
Important: this law has been replaced
Republic Act No. 8552, the Domestic Adoption Act discussed above, was repealed in full by Republic Act No. 11642 (2022), the Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act. Domestic adoption is no longer a court petition but an administrative process before the National Authority for Child Care. An adopted child is still treated as legitimate, but the procedures — including who may rescind or contest an adoption — now come from Republic Act No. 11642 and its rules, not from the article above. Check the current law before acting.