Mary Grace Natividad Poe-Llamanzares vs Commission on Elections

written by Howard

G.R. No. 221697, G.R. No. 221698-700 – 782 Phil. 292 – Political Law – Constitutional Law – General Principles – Elements of a State – Citizens – Citizenship – Foundlings are citizens of the State where they are found

Election Law – Qualifications of Candidates – Residency Requirement

In September 1968, Mary Grace Natividad S. Poe-Llamanzares (Grace Poe) was found abandoned in a church in Iloilo. She was registered as a foundling and with the name Mary Grace Natividad Contreras Militar. When she was five years old, celebrities Ronald Allan Kelley Poe (Fernando Poe, Jr.) and Jesusa Sonora Poe (Susan Roces) petitioned to adopt Grace Poe. Their petition was granted in May 1974 and since then, Grace Poe officially used the name Mary Grace Natividad Sonora Poe.

In 2001, Grace Poe became a naturalized American citizen. After the death of FPJ, Grace Poe and her family returned to the Philippines (May 2005). Thereafter, Grace Poe took her Oath of Allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines pursuant to RA 9225 or the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act of 2003. In July 2006, the Bureau of Immigration issued an Order declaring Grace Poe to have re-acquired her Filipino citizenship.

In October 2010, Grace Poe was appointed as the MTRCB Chair. In 2013, Grace Poe was elected as a Senator. In October 2015, she filed her Certificate of Candidacy for President.

Several petitions were filed against her for the cancellation of her COC on the ground of material misrepresentation. Specifically, the Constitution requires that the President must be a natural-born citizen and must have been a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding the election (May 2016 Elections). It was alleged that Grace Poe, as a foundling, is not a natural-born citizen and that her residency must be counted from the time that the BI favorably acted on her re-acquisition of Philippine citizenship in July 2006.

The COMELEC granted the petitions and Grace Poe’s COC was cancelled.

ISSUE: Whether or not the cancellation was proper.

HELD: No. The COMELEC acted with grave abuse of discretion.

The COMELEC has no jurisdiction on questions pertaining to the qualifications of a presidential candidate. The COMELEC only has the ministerial duty to accept COCs. The law is satisfied if candidates state in their certificates of candidacy that they are eligible for the position which they seek to fill, leaving the determination of their qualifications to be made after the election and only in the event they are elected. Only in cases involving charges of false representations [not relating to qualifications] made in certificates of candidacy is the COMELEC given jurisdiction. There can be no pre-proclamation cases in elections for President, Vice President, Senators and members of the House of Representatives. The purpose is to preserve the prerogatives of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and the other Tribunals as “sole judges” under the Constitution of the election, returns and qualifications of members of Congress of the President and Vice President, as the case may be.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court went on to discuss the following;

Grace Poe is a natural-born citizen

Foundlings are natural-born citizens. Grace Poe does not have the burden to prove that her biological parents are Filipinos. NEVERTHELESS, the fact that Grace Poe has blood relationship with a Filipino citizen is DEMONSTRABLE. Data from the 1960s to the 1970s show that there were 15,986 foreigners born in the Philippines while there were 10,558,278 Filipinos born in the Philippines. The statistical probability that any child born in the Philippines in that decade is natural-born Filipino was %

Other circumstantial evidence of the nationality of petitioner’s parents are the fact that she was abandoned as an infant in a Roman Catholic Church in Iloilo City. She also has typical Filipino features: height, flat nasal bridge, straight black hair, almond shaped eyes and an oval face.

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 Grace Poe’s parents are Filipinos.

Further, to deny full Filipino citizenship to all foundlings and render them stateless just because there may be a theoretical chance that one among the thousands of these foundlings might be the child of not just one, but two, foreigners is downright discriminatory, irrational, and unjust. It just doesn’t make any sense. Given the statistical certainty – 99.9% – that any child born in the Philippines would be a natural born citizen, a decision denying foundlings such status is effectively a denial of their birthright.

Further still, a scrutiny of the deliberations during the framing of the 1935 Constitution (in effect during Grace Poe’s birth) reveal that the framers intended to treat foundlings as natural born citizens. As declared during the deliberations, “rules of international law were already clear to the effect that illegitimate children followed the citizenship of the mother, and that foundlings followed the nationality of the place where they were found…”

Also, the Philippines adhere to generally accepted principles of international law:

Art. 14, 1930 Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws: A child whose parents are both unknown shall have the nationality of the country of birth. xxx A foundling is, until the contrary is proved, presumed to have been born on the territory of the State in which it was found.

Art. 2, 1961 United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness: A foundling found in the territory of a Contracting State shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be considered to have been born within the territory of parents possessing the nationality of that State.

Grace Poe met the residency requirement

The counting of her residency must be started from May 2006 and not July 2006. It is true that in previous cases, the SC ruled that the stay of an alien former Filipino cannot be counted until he/she obtains a permanent resident visa. However, those cases are not applicable in the case of Grace Poe because in those cases, the candidates whose residency were being questioned presented scant proof of their residency. But in the case of Grace Poe, the evidence she presented was overwhelming to prove that she decided to permanently abandon her U.S. residence (selling the house, taking the children from U.S. schools, getting quotes from the freight company, notifying the U.S. Post Office of the abandonment of their address in the U.S., donating excess items to the Salvation Army, her husband resigning from U.S. employment right after selling the U.S. house) and permanently relocate to the Philippines and actually re-established her residence here in May 2005 (securing , enrolling her children in Philippine schools, buying property here, constructing a residence here, returning to the Philippines after all trips abroad, her husband getting employed here).

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