Comelec asks SC to lift TRO on ruling to cancel Poe COC

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has asked the Supreme Court to lift the temporary restraining order it issued against the implementation of their ruling that canceled the certificate of candidacy for the presidency of Senator Grace Poe.

In an 83-page memorandum submitted before the high court, Comelec said Poe failed not only to establish that she is a natural-born Filipino but also the 10-year residency requirement for presidency.

On the citizenship issue, Comelec said although international laws recognize that foundlings or children with no known parents are citizens of the county where they are found, this matter however is contrary to what is stated in the Constitution.

“Assuming, for the sake of argument, that these conventions impliedly declare a foundling as a natural-born citizen of the country where he or she is found, these cannot supplant or override the Constitution, which requires a bloodline to a Filipino parent to confer the status of being a natural-born Filipino citizen,” Comelec said.

The Comelec reiterated that Section 2 of Article VII of the 1987 Constitution requires that the President must be a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, which is defined by the same provision as a “citizen of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect Philippine citizenship.”

“A foundling is not among those enumerated in the Constitution as to who are citizens of the Philippines. Petitioner admits that her parentage is unknown. Necessarily, she cannot, no matter how she presents it, truthfully claim that her father, or for that matter, her mother, is a citizen of the Philippines,” the Comelec said.

“Since a foundling cannot determinatively point a blood relation to a Filipino father or mother, there is simply no factual or legal, let alone constitutional, basis to consider her as a natural-born Filipino citizen,” the poll body argued.

With regards to the residency issue, Comelec maintained that Poe had re-established her domicile in the Philippines only on July 18, 2006 when she repatriated to the country contrary to the Senator’s claim that the counting should be in 2005.

Comelec said Poe’s actions in 2005 like when she transferred her children to Philippine schools, purchase of a property in San Juan could not be basis to justify her intent to stay in the country for good at that time.

“After consideration by the Comelec of all of the foregoing, one important matter stood out: All of these acts were done while Poe remained a U.S. citizen, without her waiving her non-resident status, with her sojourning in the country as a visa-free Balikbayan visitor, and before she repatriated on 18 July 2006,” Comelec said.

“All of said acts could be done by any other non-resident alien without any intent to re-establish Philippine domicile, hence, those were acts do not satisfy the test of substantial evidence showing that Poe had in fact decided to re-establish her domicile or residence in the Philippines, and further highlighted by the fact that she never applied for an ICR (Immigrant Certificate of Residency), she remained an American citizen all that time, she never waived her non-resident status before her repatriation on 18 July 2006, and she was sojourning in the country only as a temporary Balikbayan visitor,” it added.