Romualdez-Marcos v. COMELEC
G.R. No. 119976
September 18, 1995
Kapunan, J.
Facts:
Petitioner
Imelda Romualdez-Marcos filed her Certificate of Candidacy for the position of Representative
of the First District of Leyte with the Provincial Election Supervisor on March
8, 1995, providing the following information in item no. 8:
RESIDENCE IN THE CONSTITUENCY WHERE I SEEK TO BE ELECTED
IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE ELECTION: __________ Years and seven Months.
On March 23, 1995,
private respondent Cirilo Roy Montejo, the incumbent Representative of the First
District of Leyte and a candidate for the same position, filed a “Petition for Cancellation
and Disqualification” with
the Commission on Elections alleging that petitioner did not meet the constitutional
requirement for residency. In his petition, private respondent contended that Mrs.
Marcos lacked the Constitution’s one year residency requirement for candidates for
the House of Representatives on the evidence of declarations made by her in Voter
Registration Record 94-No. 3349772 and
in her Certificate of Candidacy. He prayed that “an order be issued declaring (petitioner)
disqualified and canceling the certificate of candidacy.”
Issue:
whether
or not petitioner was a resident, for election purposes, of the First District of
Leyte for a period of one year at the time of the May 9, 1995 elections
Held:
Yes.
Article 50 of the Civil Code decrees that “[f]or the exercise of civil rights and
the fulfillment of civil obligations, the domicile of natural persons is their place
of habitual residence.” Domicile means
an individual’s permanent home, a place to which, whenever absent for business or
for pleasure, one intends to return, and depends on facts and circumstances in the
sense that they disclose intent. Based on the foregoing, domicile includes the twin
elements of “the fact of residing or physical presence in a fixed place” and animus manendi, or the intention of returning
there permanently.
Residence, in its ordinary conception, implies the factual relationship of an individual
to a certain place. It is the physical presence of a person in a given area, community
or country. The essential distinction between residence and domicile in law is that
residence involves the intent to leave when the purpose for which the resident has
taken up his abode ends. One may seek a place for purposes such as pleasure, business,
or health. If a person’s intent be to remain, it becomes his domicile; if his intent
is to leave as soon as his purpose is established it is residence.22 It is thus, quite perfectly normal for an individual
to have different residences in various places. However, a person can only have
a single domicile, unless, for various reasons, he successfully abandons his domicile
in favor of another domicile of choice.
There is a difference between domicile and residence. “Residence” is used to indicate a place
of abode, whether permanent or temporary; “domicile”
denotes a fixed permanent residence to which, when absent, one has the intention
of returning. A man may have a residence in one place and a domicile in another.
Residence is not domicile, but domicile is residence coupled with the intention
to remain for an unlimited time. A man can have but one domicile for the same purpose
at any time, but he may have numerous places of residence. His place of residence
is generally his place of domicile, but it is not by any means necessarily so since
no length of residence without intention of remaining will constitute domicile.
The absence from residence to pursue studies or practice a profession or
registration as a voter other than in the place where one is elected does not constitute
loss of residence. The mere absence of
an individual from his permanent residence without the intention to abandon it does
not result in a loss or change of domicile.
Residence, it bears repeating, implies
a factual relationship to a given place for various purposes. The absence from legal
residence or domicile to pursue a profession, to study or to do other things of
a temporary or semi-permanent nature does not constitute loss of residence.
A citizen may leave the place of his birth to look for “greener pastures,”
as the saying goes, to improve his lot, and that, of course includes study in other
places, practice of his avocation, or engaging in business. When an election is
to be held, the citizen who left his birthplace to improve his lot may desire to
return to his native town to cast his ballot but for professional or business reasons,
or for any other reason, he may not absent himself from his professional or business
activities; so there he registers himself as voter as he has the qualifications
to be one and is not willing to give up or lose the opportunity to choose the officials
who are to run the government especially in national elections. Despite such registration,
the animus revertendi to
his home, to his domicile or residence of origin has not forsaken him. This may
be the explanation why the registration of a voter in a place other than his residence
of origin has not been deemed sufficient to constitute abandonment or loss of such
residence. It finds justification in the natural desire and longing of every person
to return to his place of birth. This strong feeling of attachment to the place
of one’s birth must be overcome by positive proof of abandonment for another.
Minor follows the domicile of his parents. As domicile,
once acquired is retained until a new one is gained, it follows that in spite of
the fact of petitioner’s being born in Manila, Tacloban, Leyte was her domicile
of origin by operation of law. This domicile was not established only when her father
brought his family back to Leyte contrary to private respondent’s averments.
Domicile of origin is not easily lost. To successfully effect a change
of domicile, one must demonstrate:
1.
An actual
removal or an actual change of domicile;
2.
A bona fide intention of abandoning the former place of
residence and establishing a new one; and
3.
Acts which
correspond with the purpose.
In the absence of clear and positive proof based on these criteria, the residence
of origin should be deemed to continue. Only with evidence showing concurrence of
all three requirements can the presumption of continuity or residence be rebutted,
for a change of residence requires an actual and deliberate abandonment, and one
cannot have two legal residences at the same time. In the case at bench, the evidence adduced by
private respondent plainly lacks the degree of persuasiveness required to convince
the Supreme Court that an abandonment of domicile of origin in favor of a domicile
of choice indeed occurred. To effect an abandonment requires the voluntary act of
relinquishing petitioner’s former domicile with an intent
to supplant the former domicile with one of her own choosing (domicilium voluntarium).
In this connection, it cannot be correctly argued that petitioner lost her
domicile of origin by operation of law as a result of her marriage to the late President
Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1952. For there is a clearly established distinction between
the Civil Code concepts of “domicile” and “residence.”
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