Funnier

I know citizenship is a solemn thing. It is a bond of filial community, a bundle of duties and obligations, a guarantee of protection.

People are called to fight and die for their nations because they are citizens. And stateless persons are a pathetic lot: they have no government to guarantee them, provide them identities and ensure succor when they are in a foreign land.

I wish this whole controversy over the (natural) citizenship of Fernando Poe Jr. (or, as the case may be, Ronald Allan Pou) did not happen. It creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty because even if the Comelec admits his candidacy, the case may be brought to the Supreme Court in the event he wins and is proclaimed.

The controversy adds to the uncertainty that the nature of the presidential race already produces. The citizenship issue has spooked the markets. Philippine bonds are being sold down by investors.

If this gets any worse, the controversy could exert pressure on the peso and create misery for our people.

But the constitutional requirement for the highest post of the land is a sacred thing as well. The Charter sets the highest standard for candidates the highest elective posts as far as citizenship is concerned – as do most constitutions everywhere else. It requires aspirants to be natural born citizens.

By the Constitution’s definition, a natural born citizen is one who does not need to perform any act to perfect his citizenship.

Now comes the question over Poe’s citizenship: a case that is as convoluted as any imaginable. It is a case that spans several constitutional periods and includes the Philippine Bill of 1902 as well as the provisions of the Treaty of Paris, that agreement between two colonial powers governing the transfer of the Philippine Islands to American sovereignty.

First the facts.

Poe’s paternal grandfather was a Spanish citizen, at least before the Treaty of Paris happened. But his father, in several documents, listed his citizenship as Spanish as well. That is a matter that requires clarification.

Poe’s mother was American. No debate on that point.

Poe was born in 1939. His parents were married in 1940, according to documents emanating from Poe’s camp itself. Therefore, at his birth at least, Poe was an illegitimate child doomed to assume the nationality of his mother.

The legal gray area here is whether subsequent marriage perfects his citizenship, assuming Poe Sr. was indeed a citizen. The matter of whether it is a valid marriage and not a bigamous one is something for documentation to settle. Those questioning Poe’s natural born citizenship claim there was a prior and subsisting marriage, rendering the union of Poe Sr. and Bessie Kelly void.

Then there is the matter of the FPJ’s birth certificate, the subject of a curious sweep of paid advertisements last Tuesday. The birth certificate, ostensibly prepared in 1939, was done with an electric typewriter – a machine that did not exist at that time.

There is an easy way to settle this controversy.

All FPJ’s lawyers have to do is to produce the documentation establishing the actor’s natural born citizenship. But that does not seem as routine as it may sound.

The only document the FPJ camp has is a birth certificate used to acquire a passport. But of all the documents brought before the public eye so far, it is precisely this document that seems most anomalous.

And so FPJ’s camp followers have no other choice but to settle this matter politically – or at least settle it in the court of public opinion.

On the day of the Comelec hearing on the disqualification case, the actor-candidate’s camp massed people before the poll body. It is as if citizenship can be acquired by acclamation.

The funnier incident was when a bunch of conspicuously costumed Igorots adopted the actor into their tribe. On that basis, they claimed they have settled the matter of citizenship.

Meanwhile, FPJ partisans have tried to spin the issue to their favor, claiming that the documents used by the brothers Fornier are fraudulent. In order to manage their spin, they have to discredit the source of the documents used in the disqualification case. The source of these documents is National Archives Director Ricardo Manapat.

Manapat, along with the brothers Fornier, have now themselves become the targets of character assassination.

The shrillness of Sen. Tito Sotto gives us an indication of the temper and disposition of FPJ’s handlers. Sotto is trying to convince the public that the disqualification case is entirely contrived, a smear job by political operatives out to torpedo Poe’s bid for the presidency.

It seems Poe’s camp seriously underestimated this controversy. They probably assumed that questions regarding Poe’s citizenship could be disposed of routinely.

But that is not happening. At least not yet.

The matter of FPJ’s natural born citizenship is getting funnier by the day. The actor’s detractors are claiming his birth certificate, written with an electric typewriter, was a wonder for its time. An even greater wonder, says FPJ’s supporters, is their claim that the alleged 1936 marriage contract between Poe Sr. and one Paulita Gomez was written with a computer.

The controversy has attracted the attention of the world’s media: onli in da Pilipins!

This debate involves really important legal and constitutional questions. But it is a debate that filters through to the public largely as a form of entertainment, the butt of text jokes and wisecracks.

I’m sure the Comelec officials are not amused. There are enough gray areas in this case to prevent this matter from becoming an open and shut case. There are enough political pressures building up to cause a conflagration if this matter is not handled with enough delicacy.

And it’s not funny, too, for all of us. It is bad enough that the elections are scaring off investments. It is even more painfully disconcerting that the outcome of this exercise could actually precipitate a constitutional crisis.