Co v. Electoral Tribunal of the House of Representatives

Co v. Electoral Tribunal of the House of Representatives

G.R. Nos. 92191-92 July 30, 1991

Gutierrez, Jr., J.

Facts:

                The records show that in the year 1895, the private respondent’s grandfather, Ong Te, arrived in the Philippines from China. Ong Te established his residence in the municipality of Laoang, Samar on land which he bought from the fruits of hard work.

As a resident of Laoang, Ong Te was able to obtain a certificate of residence from the then Spanish colonial administration.

The father of the private respondent, Jose Ong Chuan was born in China in 1905. He was brought by Ong Te to Samar in the year 1915.

Jose Ong Chuan spent his childhood in the province of Samar. In Laoang, he was able to establish an enduring relationship with his neighbors, resulting in his easy assimilation into the community.

As Jose Ong Chuan grew older in the rural and seaside community of Laoang, he absorbed Filipino cultural values and practices. He was baptized into Christianity. As the years passed, Jose Ong Chuan met a natural born-Filipino, Agripina Lao. The two fell in love and, thereafter, got married in 1932 according to Catholic faith and practice.

The couple bore eight children, one of whom is the private respondent who was born in 1948.

The private respondent’s father never emigrated from this country. He decided to put up a hardware store and shared and survived the vicissitudes of life in Samar.

The business prospered. Expansion became inevitable. As a result, a branch was set-up in Binondo, Manila. In the meantime, the father of the private respondent, unsure of his legal status and in an unequivocal affirmation of where he cast his life and family, filed with the Court of First Instance of Samar an application for naturalization on February 15, 1954.

On April 28, 1955, the CFI of Samar, after trial, declared Jose Ong Chuan a Filipino citizen.

On May 15, 1957, the Court of First Instance of Samar issued an order declaring the decision of April 28, 1955 as final and executory and that Jose Ong Chuan may already take his Oath of Allegiance.

Pursuant to said order, Jose Ong Chuan took his Oath of Allegiance; correspondingly, a certificate of naturalization was issued to him.

At the time Jose Ong Chuan took his oath, the private respondent then a minor of nine years was finishing his elementary education in the province of Samar. There is nothing in the records to differentiate him from other Filipinos insofar as the customs and practices of the local populace were concerned.

Fortunes changed. The house of the family of the private respondent in Laoang, Samar was burned to the ground.

Undaunted by the catastrophe, the private respondent’s family constructed another one in place of their ruined house. Again, there is no showing other than that Laoang was their abode and home.

After completing his elementary education, the private respondent, in search for better education, went to Manila in order to acquire his secondary and college education.

In the meantime, another misfortune was suffered by the family in 1975 when a fire gutted their second house in Laoang, Samar. The respondent’s family constructed still another house, this time a 16-door apartment building, two doors of which were reserved for the family.

The private respondent graduated from college, and thereafter took and passed the CPA Board Examinations.

Since employment opportunities were better in Manila, the respondent looked for work here. He found a job in the Central Bank of the Philippines as an examiner. Later, however, he worked in the hardware business of his family in Manila. In 1971, his elder brother, Emil, was elected as a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. His status as a natural born citizen was challenged. Parenthetically, the Convention which in drafting the Constitution removed the unequal treatment given to derived citizenship on the basis of the mother’s citizenship formally and solemnly declared Emil Ong, respondent’s full brother, as a natural born Filipino. The Constitutional Convention had to be aware of the meaning of natural born citizenship since it was precisely amending the article on this subject.

The private respondent frequently went home to Laoang, Samar, where he grew up and spent his childhood days.

In 1984, the private respondent married a Filipina named Desiree Lim.

For the elections of 1984 and 1986, Jose Ong, Jr. registered himself as a voter of Laoang, Samar, and correspondingly, voted there during those elections.

The private respondent after being engaged for several years in the management of their family business decided to be of greater service to his province and ran for public office. Hence, when the opportunity came in 1987, he ran in the elections for representative in the second district of Northern Samar.

Mr. Ong was overwhelmingly voted by the people of Northern Samar as their representative in Congress. Even if the total votes of the two petitioners are combined, Ong would still lead the two by more than 7,000 votes.

Issue:

                whether respondent Jose Ong, Jr. is a natural born Filipino citizen and a resident of Laoang, Northern Samar for voting purposes; whether or not the respondent elected or chose to be a Filipino citizen

Held:

                Yes. The pertinent portions of the Constitution found in Article IV read:

SECTION 1, the following are citizens of the Philippines:

1. Those who are citizens of the Philippines at the time of the adoption of the Constitution;

2. Those whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines;

3. Those born before January 17, 1973, of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority; and

4. Those who are naturalized in accordance with law.

SECTION 2, Natural-born Citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their citizenship. Those who elect Philippine citizenship in accordance with paragraph 3 hereof shall be deemed natural-born citizens.

Section 1, paragraph 3 above applies not only to those who elect Philippine citizenship after February 2, 1987 but also to those who, having been born of Filipino mothers, elected citizenship before that date. It was intended to correct an unfair position which discriminates against Filipino women.

                Election of citizenship becomes material because Section 2 of Article IV of the Constitution accords natural born status to children born of Filipino mothers before January 17, 1973, if they elect citizenship upon reaching the age of majority.

To expect the respondent to have formally or in writing elected citizenship when he came of age is to ask for the unnatural and unnecessary. The reason is obvious. He was already a citizen. Not only was his mother a natural born citizen but his father had been naturalized when the respondent was only nine (9) years old. He could not have divined when he came of age that in 1973 and 1987 the Constitution would be amended to require him to have filed a sworn statement in 1969 electing citizenship in spite of his already having been a citizen since 1957. In 1969, election through a sworn statement would have been an unusual and unnecessary procedure for one who had been a citizen since he was nine years old. Election includes both formal and informal process.

The exercise of the right of suffrage and the participation in election exercises constitute a positive act of election of Philippine citizenship. (Mallare rule)

Note that the filing of sworn statement or formal declaration is a requirement for those who still have to elect citizenship. For those already Filipinos when the time to elect came up, there are acts of deliberate choice which cannot be less binding. Entering a profession open only to Filipinos, serving in public office where citizenship is a qualification, voting during election time, running for public office, and other categorical acts of similar nature are themselves formal manifestations of choice for these persons.

An election of Philippine citizenship presupposes that the person electing is an alien. Or his status is doubtful because he is a national of two countries. There is no doubt in this case about Mr. Ong’s being a Filipino when he turned twenty-one (21).

Any election of Philippine citizenship on the part of the private respondent would not only have been superfluous but it would also have resulted in an absurdity. How can a Filipino citizen elect Philippine citizenship?

Issue:

                whether respondent is a resident of Laoang, Samar

Held:

                Yes. The term “residence” has been understood as synonymous with domicile not only under the previous Constitutions but also under the 1987 Constitution.

                The term “domicile” denotes a fixed permanent residence to which when absent for business or pleasure, one intends to return. The absence of a person from said permanent residence, no matter how long, notwithstanding, it continues to be the domicile of that person. In other words, domicile is characterized by animus revertendi.

The domicile of origin of the private respondent, which was the domicile of his parents, is fixed at Laoang, Samar. Contrary to the petitioners’ imputation, Jose Ong, Jr. never abandoned said domicile; it remained fixed therein even up to the present.