DLSU prof files 3rd disqualification case against Poe
Good timing
But two legal experts said the filing of the petitions was good, as the questions about Poe’s citizenship and residency needed to be settled once and for all.
Lawyer Raymond Fortun and former University of the East law dean Amado Valdez agreed with Elamparo and Tatad that Poe was not qualified for the presidency because she was not a natural-born Filipino and had not yet met the 10-year residency required by the Constitution.
They both noted the supposed inconsistencies in the residency periods that Poe indicated in her certificates of candidacy for the 2013 and 2016 elections.
When she filed her COC for senator in October 2012, Poe stated she had been a Philippine resident for the last six years and six months.
When she filed her COC for President last week, however, Poe stated her residency period as being 10 years and 11 months—and not 9 years and six months, which is what you get when you add three years to six years, six months from her 2012 COC, Fortun said.
“They can’t be both correct, right?” Fortun told reporters in an interview.
“She has created the scenario of ‘doubt,’ and she now has to prove through evidence as to what is her ‘reckoning point’ in fixing the date when she reacquired residency,” he added.
Asked when one must start counting Poe’s residency, Fortun replied: “If it were [up to] me, the ‘reckoning point’ was when she told herself ‘I want to establish my residence in the Philippines.’ But subsequent acts may nullify that declaration for the simple reason that the subsequent act is not consistent with someone intending to return to the country.”
Fortun was referring to Poe’s supposed use of her US passport up to 2009. He said even if Poe became a dual citizen in 2006 and renewed her allegiance to the Philippines, her subsequent actions defeated that declaration.
“To illustrate: I can declare my allegiance to the Philippines by tearing my green card in front of the US Embassy. Yet, I continue to use an American passport and pay my taxes in the US, while refusing to even get a Philippine [residence certificate],” Fortun said.
“In such a situation, the verbal declaration does not jive with subsequent acts that reflect a continual use of the benefits of being a US citizen,” he added.
Valdez, chair emeritus of the Philippine Association of Law Schools, agreed with Fortun that even if Poe did reacquire her citizenship or returned to the Philippines in 2005 or 2006, her use of her US passport “negated” her reacquisition of Filipino citizenship.
“The 10-year period of residency must be counted from the time she reacquired her Filipino citizenship. It is only then that she is considered domiciled in the Philippines,” Valdez said.
“If her reacquisition of Filipino citizenship is negated by acts purporting that she is still considering herself an American citizen by using her American passport, then her stay in the Philippines will not be counted to comply with residency requirement,” he added.
For Valdez, Poe’s residency should begin in 2010, when she renounced her US citizenship.
“Her renunciation must be unequivocal. She cannot say one thing and do another. She cannot fit her feet into shoes not her size,” he said.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who is also running for President, said the Constitution’s requirement for presidential candidates and candidates for Vice President should be strictly interpreted.
Santiago said that for her, the most important question concerning Poe was her citizenship.
The Constitution, Santiago said, requires presidential candidates to be natural-born Filipinos.
“If there is any doubt, the doubt must be resolved against the candidate because it’s found in the Constitution. Any provision of the Constitution must be interpreted strictly because it’s the Constitution. It’s not an ordinary piece of legislation,” she said.
Santiago added that she agreed with Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio that all doubts must be resolved in favor of the state.
And proving that someone is a natural-born citizen is no easy thing, she said, “unless you have the mother and the father testifying here.”
