THE Supreme Court (SC), in a vote of 9-3, on Tuesday dismissed the petition filed by a losing senatorial candidate seeking the reversal of the ruling issued by the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) on November 17, 2015, that declared Poe as a natural-born Filipino eligible for her senatorial post.
At a press briefing, SC Spokesman Theodore O. Te said the Court held that the SET ruling is in line with the provisions of the Constitution.
It added that holding that foundlings are not natural-born citizens is tantamount to creating an “inferior class of citizens who are made to suffer that inferiority through no fault of their own.” “If that is not discrimination, we do not know what it is,” the SC said in a ruling penned by Associate Justice Marvic F. Leonen.
Te said the Court relied on the presumption that all foundlings found in the Philippines are born to at least either a Filipino father or a Filipino mother, thus, should be considered natural-born unless there is substantial proof that would prove otherwise.
“Upholding the use of circumstantial evidence and presumptions, the Court sustained the SET majority, which had ruled that respondent Poe was a natural-born citizen,” the SC said.
The SC further pointed out that there was an entire set of professions and positions that would exclude those who were not considered natural-born if the petition of Rizalito David is upheld.
“Concluding that foundlings are not natural-born Filipino citizens is tantamount to telling our foundling citizens that they can never be of service to the country in the highest possible capacities,” the SC explained.
“It is also tantamount to excluding them from certain means, such as professions and state scholarships, which will enable the actualization of their aspirations,” the SC added.
It can be recalled that in March, the Court issued a ruling upholding the qualification of Poe to seek the presidency. Poe’s critics had sought her removal from the Senate and disqualification from the presidential race in May, saying that she should not be considered a natural-born being a foundling.
In his petition, David asked the High Court to reverse the majority decision of the SET that declared Poe as a natural-born Filipino eligible for her senatorial post.
He accused the five senators in the majority ruling of SET—Vicente Sotto III, Loren B. Legarda, Pia S. Cayetano, Cynthia A. Villar and Paolo Benigno A. Aquino—of handing down a “political decision” in favoring Poe.
He alleged that they violated the Constitution and the Lerias doctrine, which warned politicians who are members of the electoral tribunals against partisan voting.
The assailed majority ruling of SET held that Poe should be considered a natural-born despite being a foundling based on customary international laws providing right of every human being to a nationality and the State’s obligations to avoid statelessness and to facilitate the naturalization of foundlings.
David, a losing senatorial candidate in the 2013 polls who was recently declared by the Commission on Elections as a nuisance candidate for the 2016 presidential race, insisted that the dissenting opinion of the minority in the SET, composed of Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and Arturo Brion and Sen. Nancy Binay, was the correct interpretation of the law.
The dissenting members believed that the Constitution precedes customary international laws and that the rules on natural-born eligibility should be strictly applied.
They said Poe, being a foundling, could be considered only as a naturalized Filipino and she is not qualified for national elective posts unless she is able to trace her biological parents and prove that either of them is Filipino.
Carpio, Brion and De Castro inhibited from the case due to membership and previous action of the SET.