How to get over shyness (only child problem?

I need a legal advice on custody issues over a child in the Philippines. Any help?

• I have this niece who's 6 years old and is currently living with us (my mom, sister, and me). She is the daughter of my 25 year old brother. Before my brother left the Philippines to join the US Navy, she impregnates her 17 year old girlfriend (my brother was 18 at that time). When the baby was born, my brother was no longer in the country. My mother agreed to help the girlfriend with child, since she didn't have any money and was still a student. In the long run, the mother lost contact with her child since my mom threatened her and told her to stop visiting our house, for the obvious reason that my mom developed love for her granddaughter. My mom wouldn't even allow just a short visit or to see her daughter. 4 years later, my brother went back from the Navy and lived with us. He gives no damn to the child when it comes to parenting. He doesn't pay for anything for the child, and claims that she is our little sister. Still, my mom pays for everything. About a year later, my brother moved out and got his own apartment just w/n the city and didn't even did his responsibilities as a father to his child. Sometime this year, we had contact with the child's mother again. She told us that she wanted to claim her child back soon since she just graduated and will have a job by then and be able to support the child financially. Now the problem is, my mom doesn't want to give her to the mother. My mom promised that the mother could visit the child and spend some quality time with her, but I don't think she has any plans of keeping her word. My brother and the child's mother are not in good terms, and my brother gets mad every time we communicate with the mother. However, my brother neglects his duties as a father. My mother doesn't want to give the child up, but we grow sick and tired of her complaining and clamoring about the child every single day (the little kid is a real PAIN IN THE ***). My mother always tells us that she's too old and tired and that she shouldn't be taking care of a small child anymore, but she's still being too stubborn to give the child to the mother or even just allow the mother to help out a little since she wants to. I personally want to give the child back to her mother since our house is in anyway a good influence on the child. She doesn't know who her mother is, and my mom surely is no way a suitable mother to any child at all (even to us). My brother is unreliable because he is so immature. And what hurts the most, is that since the child came, my sister and I are now having 10x the trouble with our unloving mom. You get the point. So my question is, who has legal custody over the child? When the time comes that the mother can fully sustain the child's needs, can she fight for her child even though my mom doesn't want to give her up?

• Answer:

  Right now, your mom would have a stronger claim, but only by a small margin. If she threatened the child's mother and never obtained legal custody, then the child's mom had a very good case to. Yes-she could get her daughter back.