DESPITE the conciliatory tone from Makati City Rep. Abigail Binay Campos and the offer of apology from Malabon Rep. Toby Tiangco, and despite the defense coming from Secretary Mar Roxas, there is a need to determine if Sen. Grace Poe is a natural born citizen or not, by the filing of an appropriate case at this point.
If she is a natural born citizen, according to the 1987 Cory Aquino Constitution, then let her run for any position she may fancy, whether it be the presidency or the vice presidency. If she is not a natural born citizen, there is a far more important issue confronting her than her supposed running in 2016.
What is this far more important issue? It is her fitness and qualification to become a senator of the Republic. Yes, she was supposed to have been elected in 2013, even topping the list of winners, never mind if some quarters are now saying that was merely because of some 60-30-10 maneuver of the now infamous PCOS (or the precinct count optical scan) machines. Her position as a senator can now be the subject of a case to test whether she is a natural born citizen or not.
If she is not a natural born citizen, in the light of her having acquired US citizenship where she abjured her Filipino citizenship, Grace Poe’s election as a senator was possibly unconstitutional and is therefore null and void. The end result of this is that, she has no right being a senator, after all, and has to be unseated.
The argument here is simple. Only natural born citizens can run and be subsequently elected as president, vice president, and senators and congressmen. Under the Constitution, a natural born citizen is one who is a Filipino citizen without having to do anything to perfect his or her Filipino citizenship.
Now, in reacquiring her Philippine citizenship, did Grace Poe have to be do something to precisely reacquire that citizenship? Did she have to do something to perfect her Filipino citizenship which she lost when she pledged allegiance to the US? The clear answer, which even she could not deny, is that, yes, she had to take an oath of allegiance to the Philippines so she can become a Filipino all over again.
From the legal point of view, this taking of an oath to become a Filipino citizen all over again presupposes the “doing of something to perfect” one’s Filipino citizenship. This means that the person who had to take the oath to become a Filipino citizen is not, and could not be, a Filipino citizen.
Consequently, this person cannot be allowed to run for any position in this country, much less for a position that carries much power and responsibility. Of course, others are saying that the dual citizenship law in the Philippines granted Filipinos who were naturalized in other countries but who pledged allegiance anew to the Philippines the right to be considered natural born citizens.
That maybe so, but this dual citizenship law, in providing for this right to be considered natural born citizens once more to Filipinos who became citizens of other countries, emphasizes no less that this “dual citizen” can run for elective positions subject to the strict requirements of the Constitution. At the risk of redundancy, one of these requirements is for a candidate to be a natural born Filipino.
E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com
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