Sunday, March 13, 2016

Natural-born citizen and the 1935 Constitution; cf. Justice Carpio's dissent in the case of Grace Poe




"x x x.

Clearly, it was the intent of the framers of the 1935 Constitution to refer to natural-born citizens as only those who were Filipino citizens by the mere fact of being born to fathers who were Filipino citizens -nothing more and nothing less. To repeat, under the 1935 Constitution, only children whose fathers were Filipino citizens were natural-born Filipino citizens. Those who were born of alien fathers and Filipino mothers were not considered natural-born Filipino citizens, despite the fact that they had a blood relation to a Filipino parent. Since a natural-born citizen is a citizen by birth who need not perform any act to acquire or perfect Philippine citizenship, then those born of Filipino mothers and alien fathers and who had to elect citizenship upon reaching the age of majority, an overt act to perfect citizenship, were not considered natural-born Filipino citizens. As a matter of course, those whose parents are neither Filipino citizens or are both unknown, such as in the case of foundlings, cannot be considered natural-born Filipino citizens.


x x x."


See-
SC.JUDICIARY.GOV.PH