SC upholds disqualification of Uyugan, Batanes mayor

For one seeking public office, regaining Philippine citizenship is not the same as resuming residency.

The Supreme Court made this distinction in affirming the disqualification of Uyugan, Batanes Mayor Rogelio Caballero, formerly a Canadian citizen who reacquired his Filipino citizenship in 2012, a few months before the May 2013 elections.

Voting unanimously, the high court dismissed Caballero’s petition to stop his disqualification, finding “no grave abuse of discretion committed by the Comelec (Commission on Elections)” when the commission canceled his certificate of candidacy (COC) in 2013 for lacking the one-year residency requirement to run for mayor.

“The Court found that the Comelec committed no grave abuse of discretion in canceling petitioner’s COC. It also found that petitioner made a material misrepresentation when he stated that he had been a resident of Uyugan, Batanes, for one year prior to the May 13, 2013 elections,” read a summary of the Sept. 22 ruling released this week.

“Petitioner’s retention of his Philippine citizenship under Republic Act No. 9225 (Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003) did not automatically make him regain his residence in Uyugan, Batanes. He must still prove that after becoming a Philippine citizen on Sept. 13, 2012, he had reestablished Uyugan, Batanes, as his new domicile of choice, which is reckoned from the time he made it as such,” the high court ruled.

As the Comelec had found, “the petitioner failed to present competent evidence that he was able to reestablish his residence in Uyugan within a period of one year immediately preceding the May 13, 2013 election.”

Born in Uyugan but a Canadian citizen until Oct. 1, 2012, Caballero won the mayoralty race in his hometown on the May 13, 2013 elections, defeating Jonathan Enrique Nanud Jr., who had questioned his qualification before the Comelec.

He was declared the winner a day later, even while the Comelec First Division already found him ineligible to run for the local post as early as May 3, 2013. His proclamation came just as he appealed his disqualification at the Comelec en banc, which made the ruling final at its level on Nov. 6 of the same year.

The Comelec had found that “while Caballero already complied with citizenship requirement, persons who renounced their foreign citizenship must still comply with the one-year residency requirement” under the Local Government Code.

Caballero elevated his appeal to the high court, asserting that he had moved to Canada “to pursue a brighter future for his family” but “did not lose his domicile of origin in Uyugan” while he was away, thus qualified to run for public office.