MANILA, Philippines - The patriotism of Sen. Grace Poe to the country is irrefutable even with her previous acquisition of American citizenship, lawyer Alex Poblador said yesterday.
Poblador, who represents Poe, said they would prove this contention before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), which has set the preliminary conference of the disqualification petition against the senator tomorrow and the hearing on Sept. 21 in the Supreme Court social hall.
Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio chairs the SET.
“Senator Poe’s patriotism cannot be questioned. Those imputing ill motives to Senator Poe and questioning her love of country are totally wrong. They clearly missed the point,” he explained to reporters in Manila yesterday.
The lawyer stressed that Poe’s decision to move to the US was not a matter of lack of patriotism.
“It was her choice and resolve to uphold marriage and family. Having been born and raised a Filipina and with Filipino values, Poe chose to be with her husband and to raise their children together,” he explained.
Family law expert Katrina Legarda has explained earlier that it was only natural for Poe to follow the citizenship of her husband and to be where he was.
“It is a requirement of the Family Code that you go where you both agree to go. That’s the requirement of being married,” Legarda said.
Records show that Poe got married to Teodoro Misael Daniel Llamanzares on July 27, 1991. Two days later, they went to the US together and decided to start a family there. It was only on Oct. 18, 2001, or a decade later, when she became a US citizen.
After her father, the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., died in December 2004, she and her family decided to return to the Philippines for good sometime in the first quarter of 2005 to be with her mother, veteran actress Susan Roces.
In July 2006, Poe took her oath of allegiance to the Philippines. The Bureau of Immigration recognized her reacquisition of natural-born Philippine citizenship in the same month.
Poe renounced her American citizenship on Oct. 20, 2010, a day before she took her oath of office as chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). Poe became purely Filipino since then.
This means the senator was an American citizen only for nine years.
Poblador said they are set to disprove all allegations in the petition filed by losing senatorial aspirant Rizalito David. – With Marvin Sy