Short answer. Under Section 5 of RA 9048, the petition and its supporting papers are filed in three copies. One copy goes to the concerned city or municipal civil registrar (or consul general), the second to the Office of the Civil Registrar General, and the third stays with you, the petitioner.
What the law says
The petition and its supporting papers shall be filed in three (3) copies
RA 9048, Section 5 — Form Contents And Publication. Read the full provision →
Three copies, and where each goes
Section 5 of RA 9048 is specific about the number. It states that The petition and its supporting papers shall be filed in three (3) copies, and then tells you exactly how they are distributed: the first copy to the concerned city or municipal civil registrar, or the consul general; the second to the Office of the Civil Registrar General; and the third to the petitioner. So the three-copy rule is not arbitrary — each copy has a destination.
What each copy must contain
Each set is not just the petition sheet. The petition itself must be an affidavit, subscribed and sworn to before someone authorized to administer oaths, setting out the facts that establish its merits and identifying the exact entry to be corrected or the change sought. It must be filed together with its supporting documents. That means all three copies should carry the sworn petition and the attachments the law requires, so that the registrar, the Civil Registrar General, and you each hold a complete file. An incomplete set can stall the process, since the registrar acts only when the papers are sufficient in form and substance.
The supporting documents that go with it
The copies must include the documents Section 5 requires: a certified true machine copy of the certificate or of the registry page containing the entry to be corrected, and at least two public or private documents showing the correct entry upon which the change will be based, plus any other relevant documents the petitioner or the registrar considers necessary. For a change of first name or nickname, the same supporting documents are needed, along with newspaper publication and a certification from law enforcement that the petitioner has no pending case or criminal record. Assembling these before filing lets you produce three complete, matching sets in one go.
Why the copy rule matters
Filing the correct number of copies is a small but real requirement. Because the three copies feed three different roles — the deciding registrar, the reviewing Civil Registrar General, and your own file — falling short can delay action on your petition. Bring complete, properly sworn sets with all supporting documents attached, and keep your own copy safe as proof of filing and of what you submitted. The three-copy rule is procedural, not a judgment on the merits; meeting it simply clears one of the formal hurdles so the registrar can move on to examining whether your correction should be granted.
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.