Foreign wives of Pinoys get to become Filipinos, too

Joe Pallugna

MANY of us do not know the legal fact that an alien wife can acquire automatically the citizenship of her Filipino husband and thus becomes a Filipina.

There are three modes by which the alien wife formally becomes a Filipina.

The first way is to apply with the Bureau of Immigration thru a Petition for cancellation of her Alien Certificate of Registration (ACR) and prove the Filipino citizenship of her husband and also prove that she is not disqualified  from acquiring her husband’s citizenship and further prove that she does not belong to any of the groups disqualified from becoming naturalized Filipino citizens, in accordance with Section 4 of Commonwealth Act 473 (The Revised Naturalization Law) or she can avail of Republic Act No. 9139 (Administrative Naturalization Law of 2000).

The second way is to apply for judicial naturalization under Section 4 of CA 473 by filing a petition for naturalization in the Regional Trial Court. In this way, there must be a regular hearing of the petition and the Solicitor General must be notified as counsel for the Republic. Upon approval of the petition, the same process of cancellation of the alien wife’s ACR must be made and she takes her oath of citizenship.

The third way is what is known as derivative naturalization in accordance with Section 15 of RA 473.  Such law provides that “any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a citizen of the Philippines and who might herself be lawfully naturalized shall be deemed a citizen of the Philippines.”

Under this provision of law, the foreigner woman who marries a Filipino citizen ipso facto acquires Filipino citizenship without even the need of proving that she possesses all the other qualifications for naturalization at the time of her marriage nor does she even have to go through judicial naturalization, and she just have to take her oath of citizenship provided that she does not suffer from any disqualification under Section 4 of CA 473. When she avails of this law, she still has to go to the Bureau of Immigration for the cancellation of her ACR.

These laws, however, do not operate to confer citizenship upon foreign husbands of Filipinas. Sorry for foreign husbands. They don’t get that privilege here. All they can avail of is the Married to Filipina Visa to get permanent residency in the Philippines. Or, they may avail of the forty-seven other kinds of visas that the Bureau of Immigration can grant in an administrative proceedings of conversion of visas from tourist visa to the other kinds.

Why only for foreign wives? The law attempts to make a distinction here. It is supposed to be based on efforts for unity of family. Having the wife the same allegiance and loyalty to the country of her husband. But then, again, why not for foreign husbands?

Probably because the lawmakers believe that the wives will always be loyal to their husbands and to their husbands’ loyalties to their homeland? This to me is too shallow a distinction. But being the law, we just have to follow.

E-mail: ajpallugna@gmail.com