Drilon presses SET on Poe

Residency question

In separate interviews with reporters, three legal experts agreed that the SET’s dropping the residency issue against Poe last week did not clear the question of whether she met the residency requirement for a presidential candidate under the 1987 Constitution.

Article VII, Section 2 of the Constitution requires a presidential candidate to be a resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years immediately before the election.

“Later on, after Poe files her [certificate of candidacy] next month, the residency issue against her can once again be revived, no longer for her senatorial bid but for her presidential bid,” said former University of the Philippines law dean Pacifico Agabin.

Former University of the East law dean Amado Valdez also said the residency issue, when applied to Poe’s presidential candidacy, should be treated separately and differently.

“It will be a new disqualification case once she files her certificate of candidacy for President. Even if the SET has dropped the residency issue on the present case, her presidential bid is still left hanging because of another possible disqualification case that could be filed against her next month,” Valdez added.

The SET dropped the residency issue against Poe not on merits but on a technicality—the issue had prescribed.

Under SET rules, a disqualification case involving residency must be filed within 10 days from the date of the candidate’s proclamation.

Valdez said Poe, who migrated to the United States as a college student and earned citizenship there, still needed to prove that she had been a resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years before the May 2016 elections.

“The residency must be in the concept of having domicile in the Philippines. She cannot have two domiciles, one here and another in the US. It is only when she abandoned her US citizenship that she could be considered a resident in the Philippines for purposes of the elections,” he added.

Intention to return

Several allies of Poe and legal experts have earlier said the doctrine of “animus revertendi”—or one’s intention to return to his or her domicile—applied to the senator.

But for litigation lawyer Raymond Fortun, who also agrees that the residency issue could still hound Poe, the senator must be able to prove that she indeed had every intention and desire to return to the Philippines.

“The big question is: What was her unequivocal act in April or May 2006 to convince the Commission on Elections and the Supreme Court that she had the desire to reacquire residency in the Philippines,” Fortun said.

“It can’t be a simple ‘I buried my father’ while on a Philippine tourist visa. It can’t be ‘I visited and enrolled my kids’ while on a Philippine tourist visa,” he added.

Asked what acts could unequivocally prove a desire to return to the Philippines, Fortun said, “Something permanent, such as purchase of a property—a house, condo unit, country club share, or setting up a business or other similar investment.”

Poe claims she bought property here in late 2005 and built a house in Quezon City in early 2006. She also says she enrolled her children in Philippines schools in June 2005.

US passport

She has also been accused of continuing to use her US passport up to 2009 for at least 21 times, based on alleged Philippine immigration logs unearthed by her opponents.

Fortun said the allegation could work against Poe if taken to the courts.

Earlier, the Supreme Court declared that a candidate who had renounced his American citizenship, had reacquired his Filipino citizenship, and had taken his oath of allegiance to the Philippines but who, thereafter, continued to use his American passport for traveling was disqualified to run for public office.

The Supreme Court used the ruling in disqualifying Rommel C. Arnado as mayor of Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte province, twice, in the 2010 and 2013 elections.

The court said “only natural-born Filipinos who owe total and undivided allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines could run for and hold elective public office.”

Siding with Poe, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said the senator’s case was not the same as Arnado’s.

Citing her answer to David’s petition as released to the media, Macalintal said it appeared that Poe used her US passport after she executed her oath of allegiance to the Philippines on July 7, 2006. On Oct. 20, 2010, she executed an affidavit renouncing her US citizenship when she was appointed MTCRB chair, after which she claimed she never used her US passport again.

“Clearly, as held by the Supreme Court in Arnado’s case, Poe’s use of her US passport before she executed her [affidavit of renunciation] did not affect her reacquisition of her natural-born Filipino citizen [status] under [the Dual Citizenship Law], as the mere use of such a passport ‘does not divest Filipino citizenship regained by repatriation.’ To reiterate, what will disqualify her is if she used the US passport after executing the [affidavit of renunciation],” Macalintal said.

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