SC: Foundlings are natural-born Filipinos, Poe met 10-year residency

The Supreme Court ruled that Sen. Grace Poe is a natural-born Filipino who has met the 10-year residency requirement for presidential candidates under the Philippine Constitution.

In a 47-page decision penned by Associate Justice Jose Perez released on Friday, the high tribunal said the Commission on Elections' twin rulings to disqualify Sen. Grace Poe from the presidential race was "deadly diseased with grave abuse of discretion from root to fruits."

"As a matter of law, foundling are, as a class, natural-born citizens. While the 1935 Constitution's enumeration is silent as to foundlings, there is no restrictive language which would definitely exclude foundlings either," the decision read.

The decision cited the transcript of the framers of the 1935 Constitution, saying that persons of "unknown parentage" were not included in the list "only because their number was not enough to merit specific mention."

The high court also said the poll body disregarded evidence that would show Poe had intended to return to the Philippines and abandon her domicile in the US, where she migrated in 2001.

"The Comelec, with the same posture of infallibilism virtually ignored a good number of evidence dates al of which can evince animus manendi to the Philippines and animus non revertendi to the United States of America," read the decision.

The SC on Tuesday announced the verdict, with the magistrates voting 9-6.

SC spokesman Theodore Te said those who wrote separate concurring opinions were Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco, Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza, and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa.

The justices belonging to the minority who wrote separate dissenting opinions were Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Arturo Brion, Mariano del Castillo, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe.

Statistical basis

On Poe’s citizenship, the SC said there was sufficient evidence that Poe has Filipino parents and is therefore a natural-born Filipino. The court said the private respondents had the burden to show that the lawmaker’s parents were aliens.

The SC cited the statistics presented by Solicitor General Florin Hilbay showing a very high possibility that Poe’s parents were Filipinos.

According to the statistics presented by Hilbay from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the statistical probability that any child born in the Philippines between 1965 and 1975 is natural born was 99.83 percent.

Poe was found in Iloilo on September 3, 1968.

In 1960, there were 962,532 Filipinos and 4,734 foreigners in Iloilo, meaning 99.62 percent of the Filipinos there were Filipinos.

"All of the foregoing evidence, that a person with typical Filipino features is abandoned in Catholic Church in a municipality where the population of the Philippines is overwhelmingly Filipinos such that there would be more than a 99% chance that a child born in the province would be a Filipino, would indicate more than ample probability if not statistical certainty, that petitioner's parents are Filipinos,” read the decision.

Foundlings are natural-born Filipinos

The SC also considered other circumstantial evidence that would show that Poe’s parents were Filipinos, like her being abandoned in a Roman Catholic Church in Iloilo, and her typical Filipino features such as height, flat nasal bridge, straight black hair, almond shaped eyes, and an oval face.

The high court said as a matter of law, foundlings are as a class, natural-born citizens.

"We find no such intent or language permitting discrimination against foundlings. On the contrary, all three Constitutions guarantee the basic right to equal protection of the laws. All exhort the State to render social justice,” said the SC.

The SC said both domestic and international law do not permit discrimination against foundlings, who enjoy the presumption of being natural-born.

The high court said the "common thread of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is to obligate the Philippines to grant nationality from birth and ensure that no child is stateless.”

The SC said that while Philippines was not a party to the 1930 Hague Convention or to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, it did not mean that their principles were not binding.

"In sum, all of the international law conventions and instruments on the matter of nationality of foundlings were designed to address the plight of a defenseless class which suffers from a misfortune not of their own making. We cannot be restrictive as to their application if we are a country which calls itself civilized and a member of the community of nations,” the court said.

The SC also said Poe’s repatriation in July 2006 was not an act to “acquire or perfect” her citizenship, adding there is no third category for repatriated citizens.

The SC stressed there are only two types of citizens under the 1987 Constitution: a natural born and a naturalized citizen.

Mistake in residency overcome by evidence

On Poe’s residency, the Supreme Court said that her claim that she would have been a resident for 10 years and 11 months on the day before the May 9 elections was true, based on voluminous evidence showing she had abandoned her US domicile and relocated to the Philippines for good.

"It was grave abuse of discretion for the Comelec to treat the 2012 COC as a binding and conclusive admission against petitioner. It could be given in evidence against her, yes, but it was by no means conclusive," the SC said.

"There is precedent after all where a candidate's mistake as to period of residence made in a COC was overcome by evidence," it added.

The SC cited the case of Romualdez-Marcos v. Comelec, in which "the candidate mistakenly put seven months as her period of residence where the required period was a minimum of one year."

"We said that '[i]t is the fact of residence, not a statement in a certificate of candidacy which ought to be decisive in determining whether or not an individual has satisfied the constitution's residency qualifications requirement'," the SC said.

"The Comelec ought to have looked at the evidence presented and see if petitioner was telling the truth that she was in the Philippines from 24 May 2005. Had the Comelec done its duty, it would seen that the 2012 COC and the 2015 COC both correctly stated the pertinent period of residency," the court added.

Poe returned on May 24, 2005

The SC said the Comelec, by its own admission, disregarded the evidence that Poe returned here to the country on May 24, 2005 "not because it was false, but only because Comelec took the position that domicile could only be established only from petitioner's repatriation under RA No. 9225 in July 2006."

"However, it does not take away the fact that in reality, petitioner had returned from the US and was here to stay permanently on 24 May 2005. When claimed to have been a resident for ten years and 11 months, she could do so in good faith," the SC said.

Even if Poe returned to the Philippines on May 24, 2005 as a balikbayan, the SC said Republic Act 6768 as amended, or an Act Instituting a Balikbayan Program, showed there is no overriding intent to treat balikbayans as temporary visitors who must leave after one year.

"The facts now, if not stretched to distortion, do not show or even hint at an intention to hide the 2012 statement and have it covered by the 2015 representation,” ruled the SC. —JST/NB, GMA News