Issue of Philippine Residence

On June 2015, United Nations Alliance (UNA) interim president and Navotas City
Representative Toby Tiangco claimed that Poe lacks the 10-year residency requirement for a
presidential candidate. Poe had previously been working in the United States after finishing her
graduate studies there, and only returned to the Philippines after her fathers death in 2004. She
then revoked her US citizenship to assume the role of chairperson of the MTRCB in 2010.[66][67]
[68]

The controversy arose due to Poes certificate of candidacy (COC) for senator in 2012 for the
2013 Philippine Senate Elections, in which she had stated that she had been a resident of the
Philippines for six years and six months. It was argued that it might have been a mistake, but
Atty. Raymond Fortun argued that she had to prove it otherwise.[67] Tiangco stated that even
during the time of the 2016 Presidential Elections, Poe would still be six months short of the
residency requirement.[68]
Poe still has not confirmed her candidacy as either presidential or vice-presidential candidate for
the May 2016 elections.[69]
Poe met Teodoro Misael "Neil" Llamanzares In her senior year of high school.[3] The two started
dating thereafter, and married five years later on July 27, 1991, immediately after Poe graduated
from Boston College at the age of 22.[7] The marriage went against the wishes of her father, who
wanted her to have a career first before marrying.[10] Poe gave birth to her only son, Brian,[7] on
April 16, 1992, and later gave birth to two daughters: Hanna in 1998, and Nikka in 2004.[7][78]

Poe, left in a Catholic church in Jaro, Iloilo province, after birth and adopted by movie actor
Fernando Poe Jr. and his wife, actress Susan Roces, maintains that she is a natural-born Filipino.
The parents of a foundling found in the Philippines are presumed Filipino, according to a primer
from her office. Hence, she is a natural-born Filipino by presumption and those who claim
otherwise should prove their assertion.
Poe later acquired American citizenship, but she said she renounced it before a public officer in
2010, before she took on the job as head of the MTRCB. Since then, she had not used her US
passport, she said.
The primer from her office also stated that when she repatriated, she was deemed not to have lost
her Filipino citizenship, which was natural-born Filipino.
As to questions about her residency, Poe said she decided to live in the Philippines in 2005
following the death of her father in December 2004.
Deciding whether to run

The disqualification case against Poe comes as she studies whether to seek the presidency in next
years national elections.

Domicile
Former Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes had a more definite answer: Poe could not be disqualified
from the presidential election based on her residency status. Her citizenship, however, may be a
different issue.
As far as residency is concerned, I believe Grace Poe is qualified, based on the issue of
domicile, Brillantes told reporters.
Brillantes explained that the residency requirement in the Constitution referred not to the actual
period of residence but to legal residence or domicile.
The Philippines as her domicile is well established since she was born here. The Philippines is
her domicile of origin, she is a resident of the country from the day she was born up to now,
said Brillantes, a veteran election lawyer.
The residency referred to in the certificate of candidacy is actually on the domicile, and not the
actual physical residence. Domicile means you may not be physically there but there remains
your intent to return, he said.
Even if the controversy reaches the courts, Brillantes said, Poes COC could not be considered
strong evidence of failure to meet the residency requirement.
Question of citizenship
What you put in the COC does not really have much weight since the court will look into what
is the real circumstance. It will look if one is really a resident and has established domicile for a
certain number of years, he said.
But Poes citizenship may be a different issue, Brillantes said.
A disqualification case may progress once the question of residency is tied with the question of
Poes citizenship, as she once held American citizenship, he said.
In such a case, Brillantes, the election lawyer of Poes father, FPJ, said it would be almost
inevitable that the issue about her real parents would be scrutinized.
The question will then be, Who is her real father? Even if she was born here but if her father is a
foreigner, it means she is also a foreigner. These issues will eventually come up soon, Brillantes
said.

Poe was MTRCB chair from 2010 to 2012.

Senator Poe said she already submitted her travel documents to authorities and the public can
scrutinize it.
She explained that she became a dual citizen when she resided in America but renounced it when
she returned to the country after her father died in 2004.
To revert back to Filipino citizenship, ire-renounce mo lang 'yung US citizenship mo. 'Yun lang
ang ginawa ko. 'Yun kasi ay condition ng Dual Citizenship Law. Hindi iyon to-reacquire
Philippine citizenship kasi it reverts back to that automatically, she said.
Poe also said that she is a natural-born Filipino and she never abandoned it.
CRITICS CHALLENGE the citizenship qualifications of Sen. Grace Poe to run for, be elected to
and hold a higher public office allegedly because 1) as a foundling, she was stateless, 2) by her
marriage, she acquired the American citizenship of her husband, and 3) her adoption by
Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces did not confer natural-born citizenship on her. I respectfully
disagree.
Natural-born citizen. Under our 1987 Constitution, [n]o person may be elected President [or
Vice-President or Senator or Congressman] unless he [or she] is a natural-born citizen of the
Philippines
In turn, [n]atural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without
having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship.
Since the Constitution requires natural-born citizenship from birth and since Senator Poe was
born in 1968, the governing law would be the 1935 Constitution. Neither that Charter nor any
statute as of that year expressly conferred citizenship on foundlings.
However, the framers of the 1935 Constitution explained that expressly providing citizenship
rules for foundlings was unnecessary since that could be determined from international law. Note
that under the same Charter (and also under the present one), the Philippines adopts the
generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the Nation.
Applicable international law. Mijares vs Ranada (April 12, 2005) held that generally accepted
principles of international law even if they [are] not derived from treaty obligations [have]
two elements: the established, widespread and consistent practice on the part of states; and a
psychological element known as the opinio juris sive necessitates (opinion as to law or necessity)
a belief that the practice in question is rendered obligatory by the existence of a rule of law
requiring it.

Under Art. 2 of the 1961 International Convention on 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.
Applying that article to Senator Poe, a foundling found in the Philippines is presumed, in the
absence of contrary proof, to have Filipino biological parents. Since she was found near a church
in Jaro, Iloilo, when she was only a few days old, her parents are presumed to be Filipinos.
Therefore, she is a natural-born citizen.
True, the Philippines is not a signatory or a Contracting State in this treaty. However, the treaty
possesses the two elements of a generally accepted principle of international law because the
grant of nationality to a foundling is an established, widespread and consistent practice of
many states since 1961 to the present. Hence, it is deemed a part of the law of the Nation.
According to Razon vs Taglis (Dec. 3, 2009), this widespread practice or international
custom could be shown from State practice, State legislation, international and national
judicial decisions, recitals in treaties and other international instruments, a pattern of treaties in
the same form, the practice of international organs, and resolutions relating to legal questions in
the UN General Assembly.
Further, under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to which the
Philippines is a signatory and which our Supreme Court has consistently enforced, Everyone
has a right to a nationality. Thus, a denial of nationality or citizenship to Senator Poe would be a
plain violation of the UDHR.
Parenthetically, it is high time the Philippines acceded to and joined the 1961 Convention on
Statelessness for the benefit of all Filipinos, especially illegitimate children whose parents are
unknown, not just of Senator Poe. After all, it is not their fault that their parents have abandoned
them.
American citizenship and adoption. True, she acquired American citizenship after she married
her American husband. But she already renounced such citizenship in accordance with American
law. And the American Embassy has affirmed such renunciation.
This affirmation is important because under the 1930 Hague Convention on the Conflict of
Nationality Laws, [i]t is for each State to determine under its own law who are its nationals.
Thus, American, not Philippine, law determines who are American citizens.
True also, our Supreme Court has ruled several times that adoption does not confer citizenship. It
only gives the adopted child the civil rights of a legitimate child, like the right to use the surname
of and to inherit from the adoptive parents.
In my humble opinion, these rulings do not apply to foundlings. They were issued by our Court
to prevent aliens from short-circuiting our strict naturalization rules by undergoing the easier
adult adoption processes.

However, I will no longer dwell on this issue because Senator Poe does not derive her naturalborn citizenship from her adoption but from generally accepted principles of international law on
the presumed citizenship of foundlings.
Her presumed citizenship can become indisputable if her paternity is established by
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence. Under existing jurisprudence starting with Tijing vs
Court of Appeals (March 8, 2001) and People vs Vallejo (May 2, 2002), a DNA test is a
conclusive way of proving filiations.
I will take up Grace Poes residence qualification in another column.
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The Constitution states: No person may be elected President (or Vice President) unless he is a
resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years immediately preceding such election.
Equated with domicile. In election law, residence is equated with domicile, not necessarily
with a persons home address. A man may have several places of residence but has only one
domicile. Or he may be a nomad or travelling salesman with no permanent home. Nonetheless,
the law recognizes one domicile for him.
There are three kinds of domicile: 1) domicile of originthat is, a child follows the domicile of
the parents; 2) domicile by operation of law; and 3) domicile of choice made freely by a person
of legal age.
Domicile of choice imports not only the intention to reside in one fixed place but also personal
presence in that place, coupled with conduct indicative of such intention. Domicile denotes a
fixed permanent residence to which, when absent for business or pleasure or for like reasons, one
intends to return. In short, domicile of choice is a question of fact.
Settled jurisprudence recognizes three rules to determine a persons domicile: First, everyone
must always have one of the three kinds of domicile; second, once established, a domicile
remains the same until a new one is acquired; and third, a person can have only one domicile at
any given time.
Applied to Poe. Let us apply these legal concepts to Sen. Grace Poe. As a foundling found in
Jaro, Iloilo, she acquired the domicile (and citizenship) of her parents who, according to
generally-accepted principles of law, are presumed to be Filipinos. So, her domicile of origin is
Jaro, Iloilo.
After she married an American and moved to and worked in the United States, she lost her
domicile of origin and followed the domicile of her husband in America.

When she and her husband moved back for good here after the death of Fernando Poe Jr., she
acquired a new domicile of choice in the Philippines. As to when she acquired it depends, as I
will show later, on her clear intention, conduct and physical presence in the new location.
In Marcos vs Comelec (Sept. 18, 1995), the Supreme Court held that the fact of residence, not a
statement in a certificate of candidacy, [is] decisive in determining whether or not an individual
has satisfied the Constitutions residence qualification requirement.
The Court said that Mrs. Imelda Marcos made an honest mistake in writing seven months
residence in her certificate of candidacy for a congressional seat, a period less than the
constitutional requirement of not less than one year for that position.
Similarly, Poes honest mistake in indicating her residence in her certificate of candidacy for
the Senate to be only six years and six months is not binding proof of the length of her
domicile here.

Recent jurisprudence. Cordora vs Comelec (Feb. 19, 2009) held that residency is not dependent
on citizenship because even a foreigner can establish a Philippine domicile.
More clearly, Japson vs Comelec (Jan. 19, 2009) ruled that a former Filipino who was
naturalized abroad may choose to reestablish his/her domicile here even prior to the reacquisition
of citizenship under the Dual Citizenship Law (for details, see my last two columns).
Said the Court: [I]n order to acquire a new domicile by choice, there must concur: 1) residence
or bodily presence in the new locality, 2) an intention to remain there, and 3) an intention to
abandon the old domicile
The purpose to remain in or at the domicile of choice must be for an indefinite period of time;
the change of residence must be voluntary; and the residence at the place chosen for the new
domicile must be actual.
Moreover, Jalosjos vs Comelec (Oct. 19, 2010) ruled that the abandonment of a home in
Australia, renunciation of Australian citizenship, reacquisition of Philippine citizenship and
settling down in Zamboanga Sibugay show an intent to change domicile for good.
Maquiling vs Comelec (April 16, 2013) clarified, though, that the use of an American passport
after a renunciation of American citizenship effectively reverses such renunciation and
disqualifies one who reacquired citizenship under the Dual Citizenship Law from being elected
to a public office.
To sum up, Poes intent to acquire a new domicile of choice (animus manendi) is proven by her
return to the Philippines in the first half of 2005, the enrollment of her children here in June
2005, her purchase of a property in late 2005 and the construction of her familys home in
Quezon City in early 2006.

Her intent to abandon her old domicile (animus non revertendi) is shown by the delisting of her
children from their American schools in May 2005 and the sale of her California home in April
2006.
Her physical presence here is evidenced by entries in her passport (which she said she submitted
to the proper offices where it can be examined) and other authentic documents.
Based on these acts, facts, laws and jurisprudence (unless belied by contravening facts unknown
to me), I believe Senator Poe will surpass the 10-year residency requirement come Election Day,
May 9, 2016.
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Last Sunday, I wrote that Sen. Grace Poes domicile of origin was Jaro, Iloilo, where, as a
foundling, she was found. After her marriage to her American husband and immigration to the
United States, California became her domicile by operation of law.
Is Poe disqualified? When she and her husband moved back here for good after the death of
Fernando Poe Jr., she acquired a new domicile of choice in the Philippines. Her physical
presence here is evidenced by entries in her passport and other authentic documents.
Because several acts showing her intent to remain here occurred in 2005 and early 2006, I
concluded that by Election Day (May 9, 2016), she would surpass the 10-year residency
requirement for candidates for the presidency and vice presidency (unless her said acts are
contravened by facts unknown to me).
To support my conclusion, I cited relevant decisions of our Supreme Court, like Maquiling vs
Comelec (April 16, 2013), which clarified that the use of an American passport after a
renunciation of American citizenship effectively reverses such renunciation and disqualifies one
who reacquired citizenship under the Dual Citizenship Law from being elected to and holding a
public office.
Comes now an e-mail from Agueda Kahabagan (probably a pen name) saying that immigration
records showed Poe arriving in the Philippines using a US passport on Nov. 9, 2003, Dec. 13,
2004, Sept. 2005, March 11, 2006, July 5, 2006, July 23, 2007, Oct. 5, 2008, May 21, 2009, and
Aug. 3, 2009.
Kahabagan further says Poe also used her US passport for her departures on July 2, 2006, July
26, 2006, Sept. 11, 2006, Nov. 1, 2006, Oct. 31, 2007, April 20, 2009, July 31, 2009, and Dec.
27, 2009, aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 112. Then she asks: Under the Maquiling vs
Comelec ruling, is Poe disqualified from running for president or vice president?

Use of US passport fatal? Having read a similar e-mail of Kahabagan in the Inquirer website, a
reader who requested anonymity claims that Poe renounced her American citizenship in October
2010, after she used her American passport on Dec. 27, 2009, and that she had not used it again
since then.
As I said in my column last Sunday, the acquisition of a domicile of choice is a question of fact.
If Mr. Anonymous is factually correct, then the Maquiling ruling will not affect Poe and her
residency would still surpass the 10-year requirement come Election Day.
If he is factually wrong, all that Poe needs to do, in my humble view, is to renounce again her
American citizenship prior to filing her certificate of candidacy if she decides to run in 2016. In
the Maquiling case, the Court saw nothing wrong in executing more than one affidavit of
renunciation of foreign citizenship.
Significantly, the Court added that though the use of a foreign passport after renouncing ones
foreign citizenship disqualifies that person from running for and holding a public office, it does
not divest Filipino citizenship regained by repatriation under the Dual Citizenship Law.
(Parenthetically, Maquiling vs Comelec also decreed that if the candidate garnering the highest
number of votes is disqualified, the candidate getting the second highest number shall be
declared elected.)
Neither is residency interrupted by the taking of an oath of renunciation of foreign citizenship or
of an oath of allegiance to the Philippines because, as held in Japson vs Comelec (Jan. 19, 2009),
a former Filipino who was naturalized abroad may choose to reestablish his/her residency prior
to the reacquisition of citizenship. Verily, Cordora vs Comelec (Feb. 19, 2009) held that even
foreigners may establish their domicile here.
Consequently, such renunciation did not divest Poe of her natural-born citizenship and residency
when she ran for the Senate in 2013. Neither will it disqualify her from running, if she decides
to, for higher office in 2016.
Reader Andrew Ramoso sent this query: In enumerating the qualifications for elective offices,
why did the Constitution use the terms resident of when it actually meant domiciliary of?
I had the same question when I was still a law student: For the easy understanding of the
Constitution, why did the framers use the word residence instead of domicile?
Answer: The law has its own interchangeable technical words in the same way that medicine has
its tongue-twisting terminologies better memorized by physicians when they scribble seemingly
inscrutable medical prescriptions.
Are you for Poe? Several readers asked: Are you campaigning or voting for Grace Poe? In law,
this is called a misleading question because it assumes a fact not yet proven or not yet in
existence. It assumes that Senator Poe is a candidate for higher office in 2016.

However, she herself has repeatedly said she has not decided whether to run in 2016, and if she
does, for what position. My columns on her citizenship and residency are my objective legal
views; they are not political endorsements.
Since she is not a candidate, I cannot answer whether I will vote for her or not. Until I know 1)
that she is a candidate, 2) for whatever position, 3) her platform of government, and 4) the
opposing candidates and their platforms, I cannot answer the question.
I make my election choices on the basis of who the candidates are, their qualifications for the
offices they aspire for, their principles and platform of government, their character, and their
ability to carry out their principles and platform.
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Senator Grace Poe will pass the residency test, former Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice
Artemio Panganiban reckoned.
Perhaps the biggest threat to Poes rumored presidential run in May 2016, the question of
residencydomicile in legalesewas raised a few weeks ago against the foundling-turnedPhilippine senator.
Between her journey from nobodys child to the toast of the legislature, Poe was 1. taken in as
the adoptive daughter of action movie king Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ), 2. married an American and
migrated to the United States (US), and 3. endured the painful death of her father and returned to
the country for good.
As a foundling found in Jaro, Iloilo, she acquired the domicile (and citizenship) of her parents
who, according to generally-accepted principles of law, are presumed to be Filipinos. So, her
domicile of origin is Jaro, Iloilo, the famed jurist wrote in his Inquirer column.
After she married an American and moved to and worked in the United States, she lost her
domicile of origin and followed the domicile of her husband in America.
When she and her husband moved back for good here after the death of Fernando Poe Jr., she
acquired a new domicile of choice in the Philippines, explained Panganiban.
The ex-Chief Justice noted that the smoking gun behind Poes residency woesa detail in her
certificate of candidacy for the 2013 elections which indicate that she had only been staying in
the Philippines for six years and six monthsisnt the incriminating proof that it was vaunted to
be.

Poes honest mistake in indicating her residence in her certificate of candidacy for the Senate
to be only six years and six months is not binding proof of the length of her domicile here, he
said.
Presidential and vice presidential candidates are required to have to minimum residency of 10
years.
To sum up, Poes intent to acquire a new domicile of choice (animus manendi) is proven by her
return to the Philippines in the first half of 2005, the enrollment of her children here in June
2005, her purchase of a property in late 2005 and the construction of her familys home in
Quezon City in early 2006.
Her intent to abandon her old domicile (animus non revertendi) is shown by the delisting of her
children from their American schools in May 2005 and the sale of her California home in April
2006, Panganiban pointed out.
He further said that Poes physical presence in the country can be proven by entries in her
passport and other authentic documents.
Based on these acts, facts, laws and jurisprudence (unless belied by contravening facts unknown
to me), I believe Senator Poe will surpass the 10-year residency requirement come Election Day,
May 9, 2016, the magistrate said. (Samantha A. Giron)