NOW that Senator Grace Poe has overtaken in the public opinion polls all the aspirants for the presidency, she and her supporters should brace themselves for a minute scrutiny of her qualifications to vie for the highest position in the land. The scrutiny will not necessarily be malicious but mandatory in the interests of electing a legally qualified president.
In an earlier column, I asked:
1. When and how did Poe reacquire her Philippine citizenship, thereby becoming a dual citizen?
2. Or did she simply assume that she “automatically reacquired” Philippine citizenship upon renouncing her US citizenship?
Poe appears to have answered the two questions herself in an interview with GMA News, which I quoted verbatim:
“To revert back to Filipino citizenship, ire-renounce mo lang yung US citizenship mo. Yun lang ang ginawa ko. Yun kasi ang condition ng Dual Citizenship Law. Hindi iyon to reacquire Philippine citizenship kasi it reverts back to that automatically.” (To revert back to Filipino citizenship, you simply renounce your US citizenship. That’s all I did. That is the condition of the Dual Citizenship Law. You need not reacquire Philippine citizenship because it reverts back to that automatically)
Poe’s statement implies that she did not undergo any formal process to reacquire her Philippine citizenship, having presumed, in her own words, that “To revert back to Filipino citizenship, ire-renounce mo lang yung US citizenship mo.”
And she underscored that by stating, “Yun lang ang ginawa ko.” (That’s all I did.)
Sadly, Poe is mistaken. In the case of Labo, Jr. vs Comelec, the Supreme Court held: ““Philippine citizenship is not a cheap commodity that can be easily recovered after its renunciation. It may be restored only after the returning renegade makes a formal act of re-dedication to the country he has abjured and he solemnly affirms once again his total and exclusive loyalty to the Republic of the Philippines.”
Former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban has written two pieces in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on this controversy. In the June 14, 2015 issue, Panganiban supported the thesis that as a foundling, Poe could be considered a natural-born Filipino. The second column, in the June 21 issue, discussed Poe’s reported “reacquisition” of her Philippine citizenship.
In that respect, Panganiban may have assumed that Poe took the Oath of Allegiance to the country. But he raised a red flag when he commented on the case of David vs. Aglipay:
“Renato David, who became a Canadian before the effectivity of RA 9225, represented himself to be a Filipino citizen in his application to purchase public land filed before he took his oath of allegiance. Not having taken the required oath, he had not yet reacquired his Philippine citizenship when he executed under oath his said application. Thus, the Court held that he was liable for falsification of a public document.”
There are several steps required for reacquisition of Philippine citizenship, through the Bureau of Immigration, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice. The final act is taking the Oath of Allegiance.
The question that Poe should answer is: Did she or did she not follow the mandated procedures, particularly taking the Oath of Allegiance? If not, then she did not reacquire her Philippine citizenship, based on the jurisprudence cited by Panganiban and based on the provisions of RA 9225.
Now, granting for the sake of argument, that Poe did take the Oath of Allegiance to the Philippines, if that happened as a consequence of her renunciation of US citizenship – which was either in 2010 or 2012, depending on which media report you wish to believe (according to one news report, Poe’s US passport was issued by the Washington Passport Agency on December 2011) – this means that she lacks the 10-year residency requirement to qualify as a candidate for president or vice-president.
It would help clarify the issue if Poe were to voluntarily present documents to establish the legality of her reacquisition of Philippine citizenship, as well as the corresponding timeline. Disappointingly, she has chosen to remain silent on this matter, perhaps buying time while her lawyers study the situation. Unfortunately, that erodes her self-proclaimed moral ascendancy.
I hate to say this, but this matter, if left unresolved, could open up a whole new can of worms. First, it brings into question the legitimacy of her appointment as head of the MTRCB, which requires Philippine citizenship. One is constrained to ask: Was Poe wittingly or unwittingly guilty of falsifying a public document?
Then there is the matter of repeated trips to the Philippines using her US passport; the fact that she managed and, conceivably, worked in her late father’s company; and the fact that she bought a house in the Philippines in 2005 “as a temporary residence while a more permanent house was under construction,” to quote a media report.
Did she do all of these as an American citizen and was she allowed by law? To the jaded observer, there’s probably nothing wrong with that, what with aliens routinely illegally working, doing business and buying up property in our country, under the approving noses of authorities.
But for someone being considered for the presidency of the Philippines, that is crucial. And for someone who has waved the banner of honesty and integrity as the standard for her political career, the issue cannot simply be dismissed as “the way things are done.”
The situation gets murkier for Poe. In her certificate of candidacy for the senate, filed in 2012, she stated, under oath, that she would have been a resident of the Philippines for six years and six months by election day, May 13, 2013.
That issue, raised by UNA interim president Rep. Toby Tiangco, may be enough to place Poe’s residency as a presidential candidate under a dark cloud. The cloud becomes darker if she reckoned her Philippine residency as a US citizen, rather than as a citizen of the Philippines.
Article VII, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution states: “No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.”
Section 3 states: “There shall be a Vice-President who shall have the same qualifications and term of office and be elected with, and in the same manner, as the President.”
In other words, the fundamental law of the land is crystal clear on the matter. The 10-year residency requirement is an integral part of the enumeration of the qualifications of a Philippine President. The legal eagles may argue that residency is separate from the other qualifications, but that argument would be treading on very shaky ground indeed.
But, in fairness to Senator Grace Poe, we may all be like Chicken Little, frantically announcing that the sky is about to fall. Poe has continued to be noncommittal about her presidential or vice-presidential plans, if any. She may decide not to run for either position at all, and all of these could be nothing more than an intellectual exercise.
Of course Poe’s advisers may suggest that the best way to overcome the objections is to fabricate documents to support the validity of her Philippine citizenship and her residency.
I should hope not. Otherwise, we can all forget about her purported honesty and integrity. ([email protected])
