(Summary) Supreme Court Decision on Poe v. COMELEC

1. ON POE'S CITIZENSHIP / NATURAL-BORN STATUS:

• There is more than sufficient evidence to presume that petitioner has Filipino parents.

• The burden of proof is on the private respondents.

• Statistics & other circumstantial evidence:

• There is more than ample probability, if not statistical certainty, that petitioner's parents are Filipinos. That probability and the evidence on which it is based are admissible under Rule 128, Section 4 of the Revised Rules on Evidence.

• Common Sense: Foreigners do not come to the Philippines so they can get pregnant and leave their newborn babies behind. -SolGen

• Foreigners are unlikely to leave their children here in the Philippines. -SolGen

• The chances that a foundling might be a child of two foreigners is an improbable hypothetical. -SolGen

• 1934 Constitutional Convention:
The framers of the 1935 Constitution intended foundlings to be covered by the enumeration. However, they deemed it unnecessary to explicitly mention it in the Constitution, because the cases are few and far in between, and international laws already cover this.






• The constitutional silence on foundlings is explained in terms of linguistic efficiency and the avoidance of redundancy. -SolGen

• Foundlings are likewise citizens under international law. Generally accepted principles of international law, by virtue of the incorporation clause of the Constitution, form part of the laws of the land even if they do not derive from treaty obligations.

• International laws supporting the rights of foundlings:

• Even though the Philippines was not a party to the aforementioned conventions, their principles are still binding on us, as these are generally accepted principles of international law, and are therefore part of our laws, via incorporation.

• Repatriation results in the recovery of original nationality.

• Natural-born citizenship may be reacquired.

2. ON POE'S PERIOD OF RESIDENCE:

• Petitioner's claim is true.

• Three requisites to acquire a new domicile:
(1) bodily presence
(2) intention to remain
(3) intention to abandon old domicile




• Voluminous evidence proving her domicile:

• Petitioner committed an honest mistake in computing her period of residence.

• Romualdez-Marcos v. COMELEC

• Petitioner's domicile has been established from the day she had returned here to stay permanently (May 24, 2005), not from her repatriation (July, 2006).

• There was no deliberate intention to hide a fact or to deceive the electorate.

• It is the FACT of residence, not the STATEMENT of the person that determines residence for purposes of compliance with the constitutional requirement of residency for election.

• COMELEC considered no other date than that mentioned by petitioner in her COC for Senator.

SUPREME COURT RULING:

• Petition is granted. Poe is declared qualified to be a candidate for President.