The Supreme Court has held that Filipinos born to one Filipino parent and one foreign parent are considered dual citizens by birth and not by naturalization, regardless of subsequent acts performed to confirm the foreign citizenship.
Therefore, as dual citizens by birth, they are considered Filipino and qualified to run for public office, the high court ruled.
In a decision penned by Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario, the Supreme Court en banc granted the petition for certiorari and prohibition filed by Mariz Lindsey Tan Villegas Gana-Carait, and annulled and set aside the Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc’s Resolution dated September 23, 2021 which denied Gana-Carait’s appeal.
The Comelec resolutions had denied the petition to disqualify Gana-Carait as a candidate for Member of the Sangguniang Panlungsod of the lone district of Biñan, Laguna for the May 2019 elections, but granted the petition to deny due course to or cancel her certificate of candidacy (CoC).
On October 17, 2018, Gana-Carait filed her CoC for the May 2019 elections.
Two petitions were then filed before the Comelec against her: one for her disqualification, on the ground that she failed to renounce her United States (US) citizenship; the other for the cancellation of her COC, for false representations on her eligibility to run for office given her American citizenship.
The Comelec’s First Division resolved the consolidated cases in its February 27, 2019 Resolution, dismissing the petition for disqualification but granting the petition for the cancellation of Gana-Carait’s COC, finding that she was a dual citizen by naturalization because of positive acts subsequently performed by her mother to secure a Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States of America and a US passport for Gana-Carait.
Thus, the Comelec held that Gana-Carait must comply with RA No. 9225, or the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act, which requires candidates who are dual citizens by naturalization to take an oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines and to renounce their foreign citizenship.
Gana-Carait moved to reconsider the ruling, but was denied by the Comelec en banc, prompting Gana-Carait to go to the Supreme Court.
The high court set aside the Comelec’s cancellation of Gana-Carait’s COC, ruling that Gana-Carait, who was born to a Filipino father and an American mother, is a dual citizen by birth, and not by naturalization.
The court held that since Gana-Carait is a dual citizen by birth, and not by naturalization, “she is not covered by the provisions of the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act requiring candidates who are dual citizens by naturalization to take an oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines and to renounce their foreign citizenships in order to become eligible for elective office.”
“As a dual citizen by birth, Gana-Carait is thus considered a Filipino qualified to run for public office. Hence, she could not be said to have made a false representation in her COC, ruled the Court, the court ruled.