PRESIDENTIAL candidate Senator Grace Poe is a natural-born citizen who will meet the 10-year residency requirement for the presidency preceding the May 9 general elections, according to the Supreme Court.
In a 47-page decision penned by Associate Justice Jose Perez, the SC held that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion and declared Poe “qualified to be a candidate for president in the national and local elections of 9 May 2016.”
With this ruling, the high tribunal paved the way for the presidential frontrunner to pursue her presidential bid, reversing the Commission on Elections decisions disqualifying her for material misrepresentation in her eligibilities.
“All put together, in the matter of the citizenship and residence of petitioner for her candidacy as President of the Republic, the questioned Resolutions of the Comelec in division and [in full] are, one and all, deadly diseased with grave abuse of discretion from root to fruits,” the decision stated.
On the citizenship issue, the SC rejected the position of the poll body that foundlings like Poe cannot be considered natural-born because their parents are unknown and the blood lineage—as required by law—cannot be established.
It upheld the position of the solicitor general that there is a high possibility that her parents are Filipinos based on statistics.
“The presumption of natural-born citizenship of foundlings stems from the presumption that their parents are nationals of the Philippines. As the empirical data provided by the [Philippine Statistics Authority] show, that presumption is at more than 99 percent and is a virtual certainty,” the SC pointed out.
According to the tribunal, such presumption is supported by domestic and international laws, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“In sum, all of the international law conventions and instruments on the matter of nationality of foundlings were designed to address the plight of a defenseless class, which suffers from a misfortune not of their own making. We cannot be restrictive as to their application if we are a country, which calls itself civilized and a member of the community of nations,” the tribunal ruled.
As for the residency issue, the high court also reversed the finding of the Comelec that Poe committed material misrepresentation when she claimed in her certificate of candidacy that she would be a resident for 10 years and 11 months on the day before the 2016 elections.
“The Comelec, by its own admission, disregarded the evidence that petitioner actually and physically returned here on 24 May 2005 not because it was false, but only because Comelec took the position that domicile could be established only from petitioner’s repatriation under R.A. No. 9225 (Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act) in July 2006,” the SC ruled.
“However, it does not take away the fact that in reality, petitioner had returned from the U.S. and was here to stay permanently, on 24 May 2005. When she claimed to have been a resident for 10 years and eleven 11 months, she could do so in good faith,” it said.
The SC accepted arguments of Poe that she committed an “honest mistake” in her COC in the 2013 senatorial election where she said she was then a resident for six years and six months.
“As explained by petitioner in her verified pleadings, she misunderstood the date required in the 2013 COC as the period of residence as of the day she submitted that COC in 2012. She said that she reckoned residency from April-May 2006 which was the period when the U.S. house was sold and her husband returned to the Philippines. In that regard, she was advised by her lawyers in 2015 that residence could be counted from 25 May 2005,” it held.
“It was arbitrary for the Comelec to satisfy its intention to let the case fall under the exclusive ground of false representation, to consider no other date than that mentioned by petitioner in her COC for Senator,” the ruling added.
Eight justices of the SC concurred with this ruling, namely: Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Jose Mendoza, Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa.
Sereno, Velasco, Leonen, Jardeleza and Caguioa wrote separate concurring opinions.
Six other magistrates joined the minority opinion and voted to deny Poe’s petition were Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Arturo Brion, Mariano del Castillo, Estela Perlas-Bernabe and Bienvenido Reyes.