Co vs. HRET,
G.R. Nos. 92191-92, July 30, 1991
En Banc [GUTIERREZ, JR., J.]
Facts:
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.
The records show that in the year 1895, the private respondent's grandfather, Ong Te, 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. In Laoang, he was able to establish an enduring relationship with his neighbors, resulting in his easy assimilation into the community. 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 business prospered. Expansion became inevitable. As a result, a branch was set-up in Binondo, Manila. In the meantime, the father of the private respondent, 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. At the time Jose Ong Chuan took his oath, the private respondent then a minor of nine years was 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.
Fortunes changed. The house of the family of the private respondent in Laoang, Samar was burned to the ground. Undaunted by the catastrophe, the private respondent's family constructed another one in place of their ruined house. Again, there is no showing other than that Laoang was their abode and home.
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.
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 private respondent frequently went home to Laoang, Samar, where he grew up and spent his childhood days.
Mr. Ong was overwhelmingly voted by the people of Northern Samar as their representative in Congress. Even if the total votes of the two petitioners are combined, Ong would still lead the two by more than 7,000 votes.
Issue:
Whether Jose Ong, Jr. is a natural born citizen of the Philippines.
Held:
Yes; 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 Paragraph 3 was intended to correct an unfair position which discriminates against Filipino women.
The foregoing significantly reveals the intent of the framers. To make the provision prospective from February 3, 1987 is to give a narrow interpretation resulting in an inequitable situation. It must also be retroactive.
It should be noted that in construing the law, the Courts are not always to be hedged in by the literal meaning of its language. The spirit and intendment thereof, must prevail over the letter, especially where adherence to the latter would result in absurdity and injustice. (Casela v. Court of Appeals, 35 SCRA 279 [1970]).
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. Under the 1973 Constitution, those born of Filipino fathers and those born of Filipino mothers with an alien father were placed on equal footing. They were both considered as natural-born citizens.
Hence, the bestowment of the status of "natural-born" cannot be made to depend on the fleeting accident of time or result in two kinds of citizens made up of essentially the same similarly situated members.
It is for this reason that the amendments were enacted, that is, in order to remedy this accidental anomaly, and, therefore, treat equally all those born before the 1973 Constitution and who elected Philippine citizenship either before or after the effectivity of that Constitution.
There is no dispute that the respondent's mother was a natural born Filipina at the time of her marriage. Crucial to this case is the issue of whether or not the respondent elected or chose to be a Filipino citizen.
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. The reason is obvious. 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 in spite 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.
We have jurisprudence that defines "election" as both a formal and an informal process. In the case of In Re: Florencio Mallare (59 SCRA 45 [1974]), 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. In the exact pronouncement of the Court, we held: Esteban's exercise of the right of suffrage when he came of age, constitutes a positive act of election of Philippine citizenship.
The petitioners argue that the respondent's father was not, validly, a naturalized citizen because of his premature taking of the oath of citizenship. The Court cannot go into the collateral procedure of stripping Mr. Ong's father of his citizenship after his death and at this very late date just so we can go after the son. The petitioners question the citizenship of the father through a collateral approach. This cannot be done. In our jurisdiction, an attack on a person's citizenship may only be done through a direct action for its nullity. (See Queto v. Catolico, 31 SCRA 52 [1970]).
Issue 2:
Whether Jose Ong, Jr. is a resident of the second district of Northern Samar.
Held:
Yes; the petitioners lose sight of the meaning of "residence" under the Constitution. The term "residence" has been understood as synonymous with domicile not only under the previous Constitutions but also under the 1987 Constitution.
The framers of the Constitution adhered to the earlier definition given to the word "residence" which regarded it as having the same meaning as domicile.
The term "domicile" denotes a fixed permanent residence to which when absent for business or pleasure, one intends to return. (Ong Huan Tin v. Republic, 19 SCRA 966 [1967]) The absence of a person from said permanent residence, no matter how long, notwithstanding, it continues to be the domicile of that person. In other words, domicile is characterized by animus revertendi (Ujano v. Republic, 17 SCRA 147 [1966]).
The domicile of origin of the private respondent, which was the domicile of his parents, is fixed at Laoang, Samar. Contrary to the petitioners' imputation, Jose Ong, Jr. never abandoned said domicile; it remained fixed therein even up to the present.
The private respondent, in the proceedings before the HRET sufficiently established that after the fire that gutted their house in 1961, another one was constructed. Likewise, after the second fire which again destroyed their house in 1975, a sixteen-door apartment was built by their family, two doors of which were reserved as their family residence.
Even assuming that the private respondent does not own any property in Samar, the Supreme Court in the case of De los Reyes v. Solidum (61 Phil. 893 [1935]) held that it is not required that a person should have a house in order to establish his residence and domicile. It is enough that he should live in the municipality or in a rented house or in that of a friend or relative.
To require the private respondent to own property in order to be eligible to run for Congress would be tantamount to a property qualification. The Constitution only requires that the candidate meet the age, citizenship, voting and residence requirements. Nowhere is it required by the Constitution that the candidate should also own property in order to be qualified to run.
Issue 3:
Whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review the decision of HRET.
Held:
Generally No; the Supreme Court in the case of Lazatin v. HRET (168 SCRA 391 [1988]) stated that under the 1987 Constitution, the jurisdiction of the Electoral Tribunal is original and exclusive: The use of the word "sole" emphasizes the exclusive character of the jurisdiction conferred (Angara v. Electoral Commission, supra at p. 162). The exercise of power by the Electoral Commission under the 1935 Constitution has been described as "intended to be as complete and unimpaired as if it had originally remained in the legislature." (id., at p. 175) Earlier this grant of power to the legislature was characterized by Justice Malcolm as "full, clear and complete; (Veloso v. Board of Canvassers of Leyte and Samar, 39 Phil. 886 [1919]) Under the amended 1935 Constitution, the power was unqualifiedly reposed upon the Electoral Tribunal and it remained as full, clear and complete as that previously granted the Legislature and the Electoral Commission, (Lachica v. Yap, 25 SCRA 140 [1968]) The same may be said with regard to the jurisdiction of the Electoral Tribunal under the 1987 Constitution.
The Court continued further, ". . . so long as the Constitution grants the HRET the power to be the sole judge of all contests relating to election, returns and qualifications of members of the House of Representatives, any final action taken by the HRET on a matter within its jurisdiction shall, as a rule, not be reviewed by this Court . . . the power granted to the Electoral Tribunal is full, clear and complete and excludes the exercise of any authority on the part of this Court that would in any wise restrict it or curtail it or even affect the same."
In the case of Robles v. HRET (181 SCRA 780 [1990]) the Supreme Court stated that the judgments of the Tribunal are beyond judicial interference save only "in the exercise of this Court's so-called extraordinary jurisdiction, . . . upon a determination that the Tribunal's decision or resolution was rendered without or in excess of its jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion or paraphrasing Morrero, upon a clear showing of such arbitrary and improvident use by the Tribunal of its power as constitutes a denial of due process of law, or upon a demonstration of a very clear unmitigated ERROR, manifestly constituting such GRAVE ABUSE OF DISCRETION that there has to be a remedy for such abuse."
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