1.

Ernesto Mercado vs Manzano and COMELEC (May 26 1999)

Facts:
Ernesto Mercado and Edu Manzano were candidates for vice mayor for the City of Makati in the May 1998 elections.
Manzano earned the highest number of votes but his proclamation was suspended due to a pending petition for
disqualification contending that Manzano was not a citizen of the Philippines but of the United States. The COMELEC
Second Division granted the petition on the ground that he is a dual citizen which is an express disqualification in running
for any elective position under the Local Government Code. However, such was reversed by the COMELEC En Banc
contending that when Manzano attained the age of majority, he registered himself as a voter and voted in the previous
elections which therefore effectively renounced his US Citizenship under American law.

Issue:
Whether Manzano, a dual citizen, is disqualified from his elective position

Ruling:
No. The phrase “dual citizenship” in the Local Government Code actually refers to “dual allegiance.” Dual citizenship is
different from dual allegiance. The former arises when, as a result of the concurrent application of the different laws of two
or more states, a person is simultaneously considered a national by the said states. Dual allegiance, on the other hand,
refers to the situation in which a person simultaneously owes, by some positive act, loyalty to two or more states. While
dual citizenship is involuntary, dual allegiance is the result of an individual’s volition. To recapitulate, by declaring in his
certificate of candidacy that he is a Filipino citizen; that he is not a permanent resident or immigrant of another country;
that he will defend and support the Constitution of the Philippines and bear true faith and allegiance thereto and that he
does so without mental reservation, private respondent has, as far as the laws of this country are concerned, effectively
repudiated his American citizenship and anything which he may have said before as a dual citizen.

2. Tecson vs. COMELEC (March 3, 2004)

Facts:
FPJ filed his certificate of candidacy for the position of the President of the Republic of the Philippines for the 2004
national elections. Fornier initiated a petition before the COMELEC to disqualify FPJ on the ground that FPJ made a
material misrepresentation in his certificate of candidacy for not being a natural-born Filipino because his parents were
foreigners; his mother being an American and his father being a Spanish for being the son of Lorenzo Poe, a Spanish
subject.

Issue:
Whether FPJ was a natural-born citizen so as to be allowed to run for President

Ruling:
Yes. The term “natural-born citizens” is defined to include “those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without
having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. “FPJ, being born on August 20, 1939, the 1935
Constitution shall govern. Documentary evidence presented would reveal that the earliest established direct ascendant of
FPJ was his paternal grandfather, Lorenzo Poe, the father of Allan F. Poe, FPJ’s father. Lorenzo Poe’s death certificate
revealed that he was identified as a Filipino, a resident of San Carlos, Pangasinan and 84 years old at the time of death
on September 11, 1954. Any conclusion on the Filipino citizenship of Lorenzo Pou could only be drawn from the
presumption that having died in 1954 at 84 years old, Lorenzo would have been born sometime in the year 1870, when
the Philippines was under Spanish rule, and that San Carlos, Pangasinan, his place of residence upon his death in 1954,
in the absence of any other evidence, could have well been his place of residence before death, such that Lorenzo Pou
would have benefited from the en masse Filipinization that the Philippine Bill had effected in 1902. That citizenship (of
Lorenzo Pou), if acquired, would thereby extend to his son, Allan F. Poe, father of respondent FPJ. The 1935 Constitution,
during which regime respondent FPJ has seen first light, confers citizenship to all persons whose fathers are Filipino
citizens regardless of whether such children are legitimate or illegitimate.

3. Co vs. HRET (July 30, 1991)

Facts:
This petition sought to set aside the decision of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), declaring
respondent Jose Ong, Jr. a natural born Filipino citizen and a resident of Laoang, Northern Samar for voting purposes.

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, having alleged that Jose Ong, Jr. is not a natural
born citizen of the Philippines nor a resident of the second district of Northern Samar.

The HRET in its decision dated November 6, 1989, found for the private respondent. A motion for reconsideration was
filed by the petitioners on November 12, 1989. This was, however, denied by the HRET in its resolution dated February
22, 1989. Hence, these petitions for certiorari.

Issue:
Whether Jose Ong, Jr. is a natural-born citizen

Ruling:
Yes. The records show that in the year 1895, Ong Te (Jose Ong's grandfather), 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. His father - 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.

Eventually, Jose Ong Chuan married a natural born-Filipino, Agripina Lao, with whom he had eight children,
including Jose Ong , born in 1948. Jose Ong Chuan never emigrated from this country. In the meantime, Jose Ong
Chuan, 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. On May 15, 1957, the
Court of First Instance of Samar issued an order declaring the decision of April 28, 1955 as final and executory and that
Jose Ong Chuan may already take his Oath of Allegiance, which he did. During this time, Jose Ong (private respondent)
was 9 years old, 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. 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 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 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

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. 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 inspite 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

In In Re: Florencio Mallare: 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. The private respondent did more than merely
exercise his right of suffrage: He established his life here in the Philippines.

Petitioners alleged that Jose Ong Chuan was not validly a naturalized citizen because of his premature taking of
the oath of citizenship. In this light, the Court cannot go into the collateral procedure of stripping respondent’s father of his
citizenship after his death. An attack on a person’s citizenship may only be done through a direct action for its nullity,
therefore, to ask the Court to declare the grant of Philippine citizenship to respondent’s father as null and void would run
against the principle of due process because he has already been laid to rest.