Short answer. Yes. Where the adoptive parent maltreats, attacks, sexually abuses, or abandons the child, the adoption may be rescinded on any of the following grounds committed by the adopter. The petition is brought for the adopted person, who is the one the law lets ask for the adoption to be undone.
What the law says
the adoption may be rescinded on any of the following grounds committed by the adopter(s)
RA 8552, Section 19 — Grounds For Rescission. Read the full provision →
The grounds that can undo an adoption
The law lists four situations in which the adoption may be rescinded on any of the following grounds committed by the adopter(s): repeated physical and verbal maltreatment despite counseling; an attempt on the adoptee's life; sexual assault or violence; and abandonment together with failure to comply with parental obligations. These are not ordinary parenting disagreements. Each describes serious harm or a grave failure of the parent's basic duties.
Who may ask, and who helps
Rescission is the adopted person's remedy. The petition is filed by the adoptee, and the law arranges support for those who cannot stand alone: if the adoptee is a minor, or is over eighteen but incapacitated, the Department assists as guardian or counsel. This matters because the people most in need of the remedy — a young or vulnerable person being harmed by the very parents meant to protect them — are exactly the people who would struggle to bring a case on their own.
This power belongs to the child, not the parents
It is worth being clear about the direction of this rule. It does not give adoptive parents a way to return a child they no longer want; the same provision states that adoption shall not be subject to rescission by the adopter(s). Rescission runs one way — from an abused or abandoned adoptee against the adopter, never the reverse. So a parent cannot invoke these grounds against the child, and cannot cite the child's behaviour to escape the adoption. The remedy exists to protect the child from the parent, which is why only the child's side may set it in motion.
What proof and help a case needs
Because the grounds are grave, they must be shown, not merely asserted. Medical records of injuries, reports to barangay or social workers, messages, and the accounts of people who witnessed the treatment all build the picture a court will look for. Where abandonment is claimed, evidence of the parent's absence and of unmet support matters. A child in immediate danger should be brought to safety first — through the Department, the police women and children's desk, or a trusted adult — and the rescission pursued alongside those protections.
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.