Short answer. Yes, for a change of first name. Republic Act 9048 requires that the petitioner shall submit a certification from the appropriate law enforcement agencies that he has no pending case or no criminal record. In practice that means clearances such as NBI and police clearances, on top of the sworn petition and its supporting documents.
What the law says
a certification from the appropriate law enforcement agencies that he has no pending case or no criminal record
RA 9048, Section 5 — Form Contents And Publication. Read the full provision →
What the law requires
The requirement sits inside the list of things a first-name petition must carry. Beyond the sworn affidavit and the documentary proof of the correct entry, the section says the petitioner shall submit a certification from the appropriate law enforcement agencies that he has no pending case or no criminal record. The law does not name specific offices; it says appropriate law enforcement agencies, which in ordinary practice are answered by the clearances people already know, an NBI clearance and a local police clearance, because those are the agencies that certify pending cases and criminal records.
Why a name change asks for this
A clerical-error correction does not require this clearance, but a change of first name does, and the reason is the same one behind the newspaper publication the section also demands: identity is public. Allowing a person to change what they are called without checking for pending cases or a record would hand an easy tool to anyone trying to shed a name a creditor, a complainant or a court associates with them.
What the certification does and does not decide
The clearance is a requirement to complete the petition, not the thing that grants it. Submitting it does not by itself change your name; the registrar still evaluates the petition on its merits and the grounds the law allows. Equally, the section frames the certification as showing no pending case or no criminal record, so its role is to surface facts, not to bless the petition. If a clearance reveals a pending case, that does not automatically doom the petition, but it becomes a fact the registrar weighs, and it may affect whether an administrative change of first name is appropriate at all in your situation.
Putting the paperwork together
Because the clearances take time to obtain, they are worth starting early, alongside the certified copy of your record and the two documents showing the correct entry. Remember that the whole first-name process is administrative, handled by the civil registrar, and that it can be availed of only once, so an incomplete filing is costly. If what you actually need is to fix a misspelling rather than change the name itself, the clearance and publication steps do not apply, and a simpler correction route is available. Confirm which one fits your problem before gathering documents you may not need.
A later law expanded this process
This administrative correction process comes from Republic Act No. 9048. In 2012, Republic Act No. 10172 amended Republic Act No. 9048 to add two more errors — a wrong day or month of birth, and a wrong entry of sex — to this same civil-registrar route, without a court order. The procedure and documents above still apply; Republic Act No. 10172 widened what can be fixed, not how it works.