Mercado Vs Manzano Digest

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Mercado vs Manzano and COMELEC

G.R. No. 135083


Ponente: J. Mendoza

FACTS: Edu Manzano and Ernesto Mercado were candidates for Vice-Mayor of Makati City during 1998 election.
Manzano got the highest number of votes; however, the proclamation was suspended due to the disqualification
petition filed against him. The petition alleges that Manzano is not a citizen of the Philippines but rather of United States
of America. In his answer, Manzano argued that he is a Filipino Citizen because he was born of Filipino parents but since
he was born in the U.S., he is still considered an American citizen under US laws. Sec. 40(d) of the Local Government
Code provides that those holding dual citizenship are disqualified from running for any elective position.

ISSUES: WON Manzano is qualified to run for and/or hold elective office in view of his dual citizenship

RULING: Petition dismissed for lack of merit.

1. Dual citizenship is different from dual allegiance.


 Dual Citizenship – arises when, as a result of the concurrent application of the different laws of two or more
states, a person is simultaneously considered a national by the said states.

 Dual Citizenship under Art. IV of the Constitution:


o Those born of Filipino fathers and/or mothers in foreign countries which follow jus soli;
o Those born in the Philippines of Filipino mothers and alien fathers, if by laws of their father’s country
such children are citizens of that country;
o Those who marry aliens if by the laws of the latter’s country the former are considered citizens, unless
there is renunciation of Filipino citizenship by act or omission.

 Dual Allegiance – result of an individual’s own volition.


o In the words of Commissioner Ople: “…unsettled kind of allegiance of Filipinos, by their acts, may be
said to be bound by a second allegiance.”
o The concern of the Constitutional Commission in the Art. IV was not dual citizenship per se but those
who maintain their allegiance to their foreign countries. Following this, the phrase “dual citizenship” in
Sec. 40(d) of RA 7160 must be construed as “dual allegiance.”

 *Class discussion notes:


o Under the rules of statutory construction, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and all
statutes must bow before it. In cases of inconsistency, as in the present case where the statute refers to
“dual citizenship” whilst the Constitution prohibits “dual allegiance”, the first measure to do is to
reconcile and harmonize the two. It is because the Congress is presumed to have known the statute’s
constitutionality before enacting the same.

2. Oath of allegiance in certificate of candidacy repudiated his American citizenship.


o “… by declaring in his certificate of candidacy that he is a Filipino citizen; that he is not a permanent resident or
immigrant of another country; that he will defend and support the Constitution of the Philippines and bear true
faith and allegiance thereto and that he does so without mental reservation, private respondent has, as far as
the laws of this country are concerned, effectively repudiated his American citizenship and anything which he
may have said before as a dual citizen.

On the other hand, private respondent's oath of allegiance to the Philippines, when considered with the fact that
he has spent his youth and adulthood, received his education, practiced his profession as an artist, and taken
part in past elections in this country, leaves no doubt of his election of Philippine citizenship.”

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