Atty. Katrina Legarda, a strong advocate of children’s rights, was among our main guests at last Saturday’s Forum @Annabel’s.
At the outset, Legarda said presidential aspirant Grace Poe is a natural-born Filipino and those who say otherwise must prove it in the proper judicial forum.
The presumption, she averred, is that Poe is a natural-born citizen born to a mother who is a Filipino.
Legarda observed that the prevailing circumstances in 1968 in Jaro, Iloilo, where Poe was abandoned and found in a church, “defies imagination that a foreign woman, pregnant, will go to Iloilo to give birth.” The presence of foreigners in Iloilo at the time, she said, was rather uncommon.
The children’s rights crusader and law professor said she believes that Poe is a natural-born citizen “unless you can show me a foreign mother who gave birth to her.”
Legarda also expressed concern over the likely impact of the decision of two divisions of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on the disqualification case against Poe on other foundlings who might want to run for elective posts or even to become doctors, lawyers or other professionals.
The latest Comelec ruling emphasized that it is not enough for foundlings to be registered as Filipinos but they also have to prove their Filipino parentage to become Filipino citizens.
“If you want to disqualify Grace Poe, do not disqualify her on the basis of the fact that she is a foundling because that will go against the grain of the human rights of the child, it will go against the grain of the context that a Filipino is presumed a Filipino if found in this country,” she explained.
Another resource person during our media forum, Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairman Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon, said Poe’s case should be resolved on the basis of “the best interest of the rights of the child and the international principles on the rights of the child.”
According to Gascon, if a country does not have a national law that governs foundlings, then international law must apply. There are international human-rights laws, he pointed out, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that were intended to protect the rights of children and these must be upheld.
“On the issue of what is the status of the nationality of a foundling, international human-rights laws frown upon statelessness. This means that all individuals must have a nationality,” he said.
In the declaration of principles and state policies of the 1987 Constitution, Gascon explained, there is a provision that the country adopts the generally accepted principles of international laws. If there are no clear provisions governing foundlings in our national laws, then we should seek answers in international laws. Gascon also told the media forum that the CHR will investigate the recent pronouncement of another presidential candidate, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, that he had killed not 700 criminals but as many as 1,700 during his term.
The CHR probe, Gascon said, cannot be said to be politically motivated as it was Duterte himself who made the claim. The CHR will simply perform its constitutional mandate to conduct fact-finding on alleged human-rights violations, and since it has no prosecutorial powers, it can only recommend the filing of criminal charges before the proper judicial forum.
PHL and Taiwan: Good neighbors
I met recently with Jerry Chuang and Peter CY Pan of the Press Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (Teco) in Manila. They gave me an update on the current state of the relations between our two countries and referred me to what the current Representative of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Philippines, Dr. Gary Song-Huann Lin, said in his remarks at the latest commemoration of Taiwan’s National Day, which falls on October 10 or Double Ten.
Bilateral relations between the Philippines and Taiwan are very cordial and robust. The two countries have a broad range of cooperative relations, including trade, investments, agriculture, fisheries, banking, mining, electric power, pharmaceuticals, food processing, electronics, telecommunications, labor, tourism, science, information and communications technology, and education. Taiwan is the Philippines’s sixth-largest export destination and ninth-largest trading partner, while the Philippines is ranked as Taiwan’s 11th-largest trading partner.
Bilateral trade volume has doubled from $6.05 billion in 2009 to $11.60 billion in 2014. As of 2014, Taiwan ranked as the seventh-largest foreign investor in the Philippines and there are over 6,000 Taiwanese businessmen operating nearly 600 companies here.
Since March 2015, Taiwan and the Philippines have successfully amended their 2009 air service agreement. This allows the increase of passenger seats from 5,400 per week to 20,000 per week in 2015, to 25,000 per week in 2016 and 30,000 per week in 2017, not including Taiwan’s other direct chartered flights from Taiwan going directly to Boracay, Cebu and Palawan. From January to July 2015, the number of Taiwanese visitors to the Philippines increased 25.91 percent compared to last year. During this period there were 104,233 Taiwanese visitors to the Philippines, making Taiwan the seventh-largest tourist source of the Philippines.
Since the Philippine government introduced the Electronic Travel Authority to Taiwanese nationals since July 2015, more and more Taiwanese visitors have visited the Philippines.
Many Taiwanese companies have decided to expand their investments here. Among these are Cathay Life Insurance Co., Cathay United Bank, Yuanta Bank, the Kinpo Electronics, Taiwan’s 7-Eleven stores and Bioteque Corp.
At present, there are 120,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan and this number is expected to grow because the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei and Teco recently set up an International Direct E-employment System for faster job applications without having to go through the broker system.
The signing of the Philippines-Taiwan Economic Cooperation Agreement and the participation of Taiwan in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership also provide ideal conditions for the Philippines to become a major investment destination and gateway for Taiwanese business sectors in the Asean region.
These developments show that the Philippines and Taiwan are not only good neighbors, but also that our bilateral relations are likely to remain strong in the years ahead because of shared values and goals.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.