Professional Documents
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power and function vested in the Comelec is designed precisely to avoid any situation
where a dispute affecting elections is left without any legal remedy.
If one who is obviously not a natural-born Philippine citizen, like Arnold Schwarzenneger,
runs for President, the Comelec is certainly not powerless to cancel the certificate of candidacy
of such candidate. There is no need to wait until after the elections before such candidate may be
disqualified.
2. In fact, the COMELEC is empowered to motu proprio cancel COCs of nuisance
candidates.
It cannot be disputed that a person, not a natural-born Filipino citizen, who files a certificate of
candidacy for President puts the election process in mockery and is therefore a nuisance
candidate. Such persons certificate of candidacy can motu proprio be cancelled by the
COMELEC under Section 69 of the OEC, which empowers the COMELEC to cancel motu
proprio the COC if it has been filed to put the election process in mockery. (Timbol vs Comelec,
2015)
international law at that time, as there is still none today, conferring automatically a nationality to
foundlings at birth.
There is no law or jurisprudence which supports the contention that naturalborn citizenship can be conferred on a foundling based alone on statistical
probability.
On Adoption Laws
Philippine laws and jurisprudence on adoption is simply not determinative of
natural-born citizenship.
On Burden of Proof
Since the Constitution requires that the President of the Philippines shall be a natural-born citizen
of the Philippines, it is imperative that petitioner prove that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen,
despite the fact that she is a foundling. The burden of evidence shifted to her when she admitted
her status as a foundling with no known biological parents. At that moment, it became her duty
to prove that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen.
must prove that either her father or mother is a Filipino citizen for her to be considered a naturalborn Filipino citizen. Any international law which contravenes the jus sanguinis principle in the
Constitution must of course be rejected.
6. Sixth, petitioner failed to discharge her burden to prove that she is a natural-born Filipino
citizen. Being a foundling, she admitted that she does not know her biological parents, and
therefore she cannot trace blood relation to a Filipino father or mother. Without credible and
convincing evidence that petitioners biological father or mother is a Filipino citizen, petitioner
cannot be considered a natural-born Filipino citizen.
7. Seventh, a foundling has to perform an act, that is, prove his or her status as a foundling, to
acquire Philippine citizenship. This being so, a foundling can only be deemed a naturalized
Filipino citizen because the foundling has to perform an act to acquire Philippine citizenship.
Since there is no Philippine law specifically governing the citizenship of foundlings, their
citizenship is addressed by customary international law, namely: the right of every human being
to a nationality, and the States obligations to avoid statelessness and to facilitate the
naturalization of foundlings.
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