The petition to cancel the congressional bids of Alan and Lani Cayetano over the issue on residency is based on a “shallow argument,” the lawyer of the Cayetano couple said Thursday.
The couple’s legal counsel, George Garcia, clarified in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel that a person can have more than one residence “at the same time” as provided by the election law and the Supreme Court.
The couple, according to Garcia, are running “not because they wanted to get the best of both worlds but that’s what the law allows, not because we wanted to take advantage of the law but because that is the wish of the people of Taguig.”
“Is the residence or domicile stated in the election law the same as the residence or domicile in civil law? The answer is no. Establishing your own family home is different from establishing your own domicile,” he explained in English and Filipino.
Garcia pointed out that Alan’s domicile of origin is in the first district of Taguig while his wife Lani’s is in the second district.
“Ang ibig sabihin,…(What this means is) Alan Peter Cayetano can run, can be voted upon and can vote in the first district, and Mayor Lani Cayetano can run, can vote and be voted upon in the second district,” he said.
The couple’s conjugal residence, meanwhile, is in The Fort in the second district, he noted.
“Precisely that is the shallowness of the argument […] (that what is being considered here is) not domicile but residence,” Garcia said, hitting the petition.
He said filing the petition against the bids of the Cayetano couple implies “na parehas silang walang domicile ngayon (that both of them don’t have domiciles).”
“Mali ang argument ng petitioner (The petitioner is wrong),” Garcia said.
“Hindi pupwedeng i-abandon mo ang domicile mo simply because your wife transferred her own domicile in another place. There should be an action, instances, or yung intention to prove na naglipat na siya ng kanyang domicile,” he added.
(You cannot abandon your domicile because your wife transferred her own domicile in another place. There should be an action, instances or intention to prove that he transferred his own domicile.)
He said that in the case of Cayetano, Bagumbayan in the first district remains as his domicile.
Earlier, separate petitions were filed against the congressional bids of the Cayetano couple over an apparent ploy on “dynastic expansion.”
READ: Comelec asked to nullify Cayetano couple’s COCs
The petition pointed out that the declaration of the Cayetano couple in their respective certificates of candidacy that they have different residencies raise “serious legal infirmities” on their qualifications since Alan and Lani “being married and obliged by law to live together in one domicile —ran in two separate districts.” /ee