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“Failure to renounce foreign citizenship in accordance with the exact tenor of Section 5(2) of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9225 [Citizenship Retention and Re-Acquisition Act of 2003]renders a dual citizen ineligible to run for and thus hold any elective public office.”
Thus held the Supreme Court as it dismissed the petition for certiorari of the winning vice-mayoral candidate of Caba, La Union who was unseated after being disqualified on the ground that her personal declaration of renunciation of her Australian citizenship was not under oath as required by RA 9225.
In a 24-page decision penned by Justice Bienvenido L. Reyes, the Court En Banc affirmed in toto the assailed resolution of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC)en banc dated September 6, 2011 that affirmed the consolidated Decision dated October 22, 2010 of the Bauang, La Union Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 33 that had declared Teodora Sobejana-Condon disqualified and ineligible to her position as Caba, La Union Vice-Mayor.
The Court held that petitioner Sobejana-Condon was disqualified from running for elective office for failure to renounce her Australian citizenship under oath contrary to the exact mandate of Sec. 5(2) that the renunciation of foreign citizenship must be sworn before an officer authorized to administer oath.
“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 Court held.
The Court further held that the petitioner’s act of running for public office does not suffice to serve as an effective renunciation of her Australian citizenship. While the Court has previously declared that the filing by a person with dual citizenship of a certificate of candidate is already considered a renunciation of foreign citizenship, such ruling was already adjudged superseded by the enactment of RA 9255 on August 29, 2003 which provides for the additional condition of a personal and sworn renunciation of foreign citizenship. It added that “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.”
“[Petitioner] is yet to regain her political right to seek elective office. Unless she executes a sworn renunciation of her Australian citizenship, she is ineligible to run for and hold any elective office in the Philippines,” held the Court.
The Court also held that it cannot read the Australian Citizen Act of 1978 under which petitioner claim she deemed to have lost her Australian citizenship into RA 9225 as the Court would be “applying not what the legislative department has deemed wise to require. To do so would be a brazen encroachment upon the sovereign will and power of the people of this Republic.”
Petitioner Sobejano-Condon was a natural-born Filipino citizen on August 8, 1944 but became a naturalized Australian citizen due to her marriage to one Kevin Thomas Condon on December 13, 1984. On December 2, 2005, she filed an application to re-acquire Philippine citizenship before the Philippine Embassy in Canberra, Australia pursuant to Sec. 3 of RA 9225, which was approved and she took her oath of allegiance to the Republic on December 5, 2005.
On September 18, 2006, petitioner filed an unsworn Declaration of Renunciation of Australian Citizenship before the Department of Immigration and Indigenous Affairs, Canberra, Australia, which in turn issued the order dated September 27, 2006 certifying that she has ceased to be an Australian citizen.
She ran for Mayor in her hometown of Caba, La Union in 2007 elections but lost her bid. She ran again and won in the May 2010 elections, this time for position of Vice-Mayor, and took her oath on May 13, 2010. However, private respondents Luis M. Bautista, et al., all registered voters of Caba, La Union, filed separate petitions for quo warranto questioning her eligibility before the RTC on the issue of her dual citizenship and that she failed to execute “a personal and sworn renunciation of any and all foreign citizenship before any public officer authorized to administer an oath.”
The RTC on October 22, 2010 ruled that petitioner’s failure to comply with sec. 5(2) of RA 9225 rendered her ineligible to run and hold public office. It also nullified her proclamation as winning candidate and declared the position of Vice-Mayor in Caba, La Union vacant. Sobejana-Condon appealed to the COMELEC and the poll body’s Second Division dismissed the same for failure to pay the docket fees within the prescribed period. On motion for reconsideration, the appeal was reinstated by the COMELEC en banc in its September 6, 2011 resolution. However, the COMELEC en banc,in the same resolution, concurred with the findings and conclusions of the RTC. Thus, it dismissed petitioner’s instant appeal for lack of merit and affirmed the October 22, 2010 decision of the RTC, as well as granted the Motion for Execution filed by private respondents.
The Court held also that the COMELEC en banc did not commit grave abuse of discretion when it proceeded to decide the substantive merits of the petitioner’s appeal after ruling for reinstatement. It held that an appeal may be simultaneously reinstated and definitively resolved by the COMELEC en banc in a resolution disposing of a motion for reconsideration pursuant to Sec. 3, Art. IX-C of the Constitution and Sec. 5(c), Rule 3 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure.
The Court further held that the COMELEC en banc has the power to order discretionary execution of judgment which is expressly sanctioned by Section 1, Rule 41 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure.
Citing Sec. 2, Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, the Court also held that execution pending appeal may be issued by an appellate court after the trial court has lost jurisdiction.
The Court held that private respondents are not estopped from questioning petitioner’s eligibility to hold public office pursuant to Sec. 253 of the Omnibus Election Code which allows the filing of quo warranto petition within 10 days after the proclamation of the election’s results, which was what private respondents did. (GR No. 198742, Sobejana-Condon v. COMELEC, August 10, 2012)
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