Final verdict?

Now that the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled with finality on the FPJ disqualification case, it would not be amiss to make an evaluation of the ruling for academic purposes. The case really generated a lot of interest for its political undertones and for the contentious legal issues resolved, from the procedural to the more substantive aspects of the law which are very instructive to law students and members of the legal profession.

Procedurally, the SC justices unanimously agreed that it cannot entertain the petitions directly filed before it seeking Poe’s disqualification due to lack of the citizenship requirement since these direct petitions are essentially election contests that can be filed with the Court acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, only after – not before – the election is held. But it has the power to review and to annul for grave abuse of discretion the COMELEC resolution dismissing the petition filed before that body which prayed for Poe’s disqualification on the contention that he has committed material misrepresentation in his certificate of candidacy by representing himself to be a natural-born citizen of the Philippines.

To find out whether the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion, the thirteen SC justices who took part in the case first of all expressly or impliedly concluded that the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a child is immaterial in determining whether he is a natural-born citizen as long as there is proof of his paternity to a Filipino father. This conclusion is based on the argument that the 1935 Constitutional provision applicable to this case declaring as citizens of the Philippines "those whose fathers are citizens of the Philippines" ( Art. III Sec.1[3]) makes no distinction on whether the children of these Filipino fathers are legitimate or illegitimate. The case thus definitely settled the legal controversy on the interpretation of said provision in the light of previous rulings in Morano v. Vivo, Chiongbian v. de Leon, Serra v. Republic and Paa v. Chan making it applicable only to legitimate children since illegitimate children follows the citizenship of the mother.

So in the case of FPJ, who was evidently born out of wedlock and therefore illegitimate, the main questions answered by the SC to find out whether the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion, were reduced to determining whether there is enough proof of his relationship to his alleged father Allan F. Poe (filiation) or the latter’s relationship to him (paternity) and of Allan F. Poe’s Philippine citizenship. On these two issues, the SC was divided.

According to the main decision, the duly notarized declaration of Ruby Kelley Mangahas, sister of Bessie Kelley Poe, given on January 12, 2004, might be accepted as a declaration about pedigree under Section 39, Rule 130, to prove the acts of Allan F. Poe recognizing his own paternal relationship with FPJ, i.e. living together with Bessie Kelley and his children (including FPJ) in one house in Malate and as one family. Besides, according to some concurring opinions, there is also the admission in the pleadings of the petitioner that FPJ is the son of Allan F. Poe. The main decision also found that Allan F. Poe was a Filipino, because his father Lorenzo Pou ( FPJ’s grandfather) who was residing in the Philippines in 1902 would have benefited from the "en masse Filipinization" that the Philippine Bill of 1902 gave to residents and this Filipinization extended to his son Allan F.Poe.

The minority however said that Ruby’s declaration cannot be accepted as proof of FPJ’s relationship to his father because under the cited Rules of Court, said declaration to be admissible in evidence must be made before the controversy has occurred. In this case, the declaration was made only on January 12, 2004 when the controversy was already raging. Besides, the said declaration is hearsay and contains mere conclusions of law according to the dissenters. The judicial admission of private petitioner on the other hand cannot also be used to prove filiation because "the State is not put in estoppel by the mistakes or errors of its officials, much less by those who, not being agents thereof, are in no position to bind it" as this would be sanctioning a "monstrosity known as citizenship by estoppel. That Allan F. Poe was a Filipino because the en masse Filipinization benefiting his father Lorenzo Pou extended to him, has not been sufficiently shown as there is no evidence that Lorenzo was even present in the Philippines when the organic act of 1902 was passed.

With these contradictory views of the majority and the minority, FPJ’s citizenship from birth is not yet decisively settled.

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