Co v. Electoral Tribunal of the House of Representative
ANTONIO Y. CO, petitioner,
vs. ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND JOSE ONG, JR.,
respondents.
En Banc
Doctrine: citizenship
Date: July 30, 1991
Ponente: Justice Gutierrez Jr.
Facts:
- The petitioners come
to this Court asking for the setting aside and reversal of a decision of
the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET).
- The HRET declared that
respondent Jose Ong, Jr. is a natural born Filipino citizen and a resident
of Laoang, Northern Samar for voting purposes.
- On May 11, 1987, the
congressional election for the second district of Northern Samar was held.
- Among the candidates
who vied for the position of representative in the second legislative
district of Northern Samar are the petitioners, Sixto Balinquit and
Antonio Co and the private respondent, Jose Ong, Jr.
- Respondent Ong was
proclaimed the duly elected representative of the second district of
Northern Samar.
- The petitioners filed
election protests against the private respondent premised on the following
grounds:
- 1)Jose Ong, Jr. is not a natural born
citizen of the Philippines; and
- 2)Jose Ong, Jr. is
not a resident of the second district of Northern Samar.
- The HRET in its
decision dated November 6, 1989, found for the private respondent.
- A motion for
reconsideration was filed by the petitioners on November 12, 1989. This
was, however, denied by the HRET in its resolution dated February 22,
1989.
- Hence, these petitions
for certiorari.
Issue:
- WON Jose Ong, Jr. is a
natural born citizen of the Philippines.
Held: Yes. Petitions are dismissed.
Ratio:
- The records show that
in the year 1895, Ong Te (Jose Ong's grandfather), 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.
- 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 Jose Ong who was born in 1948.
- Jose Ong Chuan 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, Jose Ong Chuan, 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. During this time, Jose
Ong (private respondent) was 9 years old, 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.
- 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.
- Jose Ong 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 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.
- The Court interprets
Section 1, Paragraph 3 above as applying 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. The
provision in question was enacted to correct the anomalous situation
where one born of a Filipino father and an alien mother was automatically
granted the status of a natural-born citizen while one born of a Filipino
mother and an alien father would still have to elect Philippine
citizenship. If one so elected, he was not, under earlier laws, conferred
the status of a natural-born
- Election 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. 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 inspite 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
- In Re: Florencio Mallare: the Court held that
the exercise of the right of suffrage and the participation in election
exercises constitute a positive act of election of Philippine citizenship
- The private
respondent did more than merely exercise his right of suffrage. He has
established his life here in the Philippines.
- Petitioners alleged
that Jose Ong Chuan was not validly a naturalized citizen because of his
premature taking of the oath of citizenship.
- SC: The Court cannot
go into the collateral procedure of stripping respondent’s father of his
citizenship after his death. An attack on a person’s citizenship may only
be done through a direct action for its nullity, therefore, to ask the
Court to declare the grant of Philippine citizenship to respondent’s
father as null and void would run against the principle of due process
because he has already been laid to rest
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