THE camp of Sen. Grace Poe on Tuesday maintained that the lawmaker, being a foundling, is a Filipino citizen from birth and does not have to go through a naturalization process to become a citizen.
Lawyer George Garcia, one of Poe’s legal counsels in the disqualification case filed against her before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET), said the longstanding presumption and principle of customary international law is that a foundling is considered to have been born in the state where he or she was found and from parents of that country’s nationality.
Poe’s camp issued the statement apparently in reaction to Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, chairman of the SET, statement that Poe, being a foundling, cannot be considered a natural-born Filipino citizen unless evidence is presented that her biological parents are Filipinos as required under the Constitution.
Carpio cited the principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood), explaining that the Constitution requires either of the parents of Poe to be a Filipino citizen for her to be a natural-born citizen. “To be natural-born, you must show blood relation,” Carpio stressed during interpellation.
He senior justice said that while international conventions signed by the Philippines allowed foundlings in the country to be Filipino citizens, such process should be considered as a naturalization of citizenship.
“That’s when you grant passport to foundling. That gives a foundling citizenship, which Poe, a foundling from Jaro, Iloilo, in 1968, migrated to the US to pursue a college degree.
She eventually found work and had a family there.
Garcia said the legal presumption that foundlings are natural-born Filipino citizens is the reason why Poe need not have to go through the process of naturalization, which is a legal procedure through which a foreign citizen or national can become a Filipino citizen.
He argued that under the Philippine law a “naturalized citizen would always mean to be a former foreigner.”
In the case of Poe, Garcia said the senator “did not apply for Philippine citizenship and it is the presumption of law, the Constitution, and international convention and treaties that made her a natural-born citizen of the country.”