Lawyers Fortun, Roque continue attack on Poe over citizenship

LEADING the survey is not the determining point of whether someone is qualified to run for the country’s top post but it’s the citizenship that matters, experts say.

Litigation expert Raymond Fortun said Grace Poe’s returning to the Philippines to attend a wake or burial or send children to school but still keeping a US passport is not enough act to consider that she has abandoned US citizenship.

“Sen. Grace Poe needs to satisfactorily show that she reacquired residency in PH prior to May 2006. It must be an equivocal act to reestablish her roots,” Fortun said in a text message.

“Attending a wake/burial or sending kids to a Philippine school while still hanging on to a US passport may not be sufficient,” he said.

On the other hand, UP law professor Harry Roque said Poe should be transparent.

“Be transparent about when she renounced US citizenship and when she last used her US Passport,” he said.

Poe recently topped the Pulse Asia Survey among those aspiring to run for president next year.

She is the adopted daughter of the late action star Fernando Poe Jr. and actress Susan Roces. She grew up in the Philippines but later pursued college in the US where she later found a job and acquired dual citizenship.

Poe has insisted she has met the 10-year residency rule because she returned to the country in 2004 after her father passed away.  She, however, did not renounce her US citizenship until 2010, when she was appointed to the Movie and Television Ratings Classification Board.

As late as 2009, she was still using her US passport to travel to and from the Philippines, according to Immigration records. Some legal experts, like Roque, have earlier said the count of her residency should begin in 2010 when she renounced her US citizenship.

Experts pointed out that Article VII, Section 2 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which requires a presidential candidate to be natural-born citizen and a resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years immediately preceding such election, is mandatory.

Roque, in a blog post, quoted a 2003 commentary from constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas who said a candidate who had already renounced his foreign citizenship “equivalently withdraws his renunciation… if he continues to use a foreign passport.”

Roque said Poe must have renounced and resided in the Philippines “exclusively” as a Filipino for at least 10 years.

“The dual citizenship law reckons compliance for candidates for elective posts only from the time they became exclusively Filipino citizen,” said Roque.

The lawyer added that Poe’s taking an oath of allegiance to the Philippines when she renounced her US citizenship in 2010 was considered “positive acts” to acquire or perfect Philippine citizenship.

And under the Constitution, a candidate can only be considered “natural-born” if he or she is a citizen since birth “without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship.”