SC: Dual citizens must first take oath dropping foreign status before running in polls

Candidates with dual citizenship who intend to run for public office should first give up their foreign citizenship and do it under oath, according to the Supreme Court.

 

This, the court ruled in a 24-page decision penned by SC Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes, junking a petition for certiorari filed by Caba, La Union Vice Mayor Teodora Sobejana-Condon.

 

The ruling was promulgated a month before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) begins processing the filing for candidacy for national elective positions. So, prospective candidates with dual citizenship take heed.

 

A regional trial court in Bauang, La Union on Oct. 22, 2010 ruled that Condon was ineligible to become mayor because she had not renounced her Australian citizenship under oath. The Comelec affirmed the ruling about a year later, on Sept. 6, 2011.

 

Unsworn renunciation of Australian citizenship

 

Condon was born in the Philippines in Aug. 1944 but became a naturalized Australian citizen due to her marriage with husband Kevin Thomas Condon in Dec. 1984.

 

In December 2005, she applied for and was allowed to re-acquire her Filipino citizenship through the Philippine Embassy in Canberra, Australia. In September the following year, she filed an unsworn Declaration of Renunciation of Australian Citizenship before the Department of Immigration and Indigenous Affairs, Canberra, Australia, which eventually issued an order dated Sept. 27, 2006 certifying Condon has ceased to be an Australian citizen.

 

Condon ran but lost in the 2007 mayoral elections in Caba, La Union. In the 2010 elections, she ran again this time for vice mayor and won. Her victory, however, was contested by registered Caba voters Luis M. Bautista, et al. in a quo warranto petition and insisted her renunciation was not done under oath.

 

The RTC, in its Oct. 2010 ruling, sided with the petitioners and rendered Condon ineligible to hold public office. The vice mayor appealed the ruling before the Comelec but the poll body rejected it, forcing her to elevate the matter before the Supreme Court.

 

In its ruling, however, the high court junked Condon's petition and affirmed the Comelec resolution in its entirety.

 

The court said while Condon renounced her citizenship, she had not done so under oath, in violation of Section 5(2) of Republic Act No. 9225 or the Citizenship Retention and Re-Acquisition Act of 2003.

 

“The language of the provision is plain and unambiguous. It expresses a single, definite, and sensible meaning and must thus be read literally. The foreign citizenship must be formally rejected through an affidavit duly sworn before an officer authorized to administer oath,” the high court said.

 

RA 9225 supersedes old election rulings

 

Prior to the Citizenship Retention and Re-Acquisition Act, a Supreme Court decision ruled that a person with dual citizenship automatically renounces his or her foreign citizenship once he or she files a certificate of candidacy.

 

The court acknowledged that RA 9255 had already superseded its earlier ruling on dual citzenships for election candidates.

 

“Failure to renounce foreign citizenship in accordance with the exact tenor of Section 5(2) of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9225 renders a dual citizen ineligible to run for and thus hold any elective public office,” the court said.

 

“The fact that petitioner won the elections can not cure the defect of her candidacy... [since] garnering the most number of votes does not validate the election of a disqualified candidate because the application of the constitutional and statutory provisions on disqualification is not a matter of popularity,” the court further said.

 

The high court also said the Comelec did not commit grave abuse of discretion when it resolved Condon's appeal after it was reinstated before the poll body. — MRT/ELR, GMA News