“The Defense Secretary should address the issue (of dual citizenship) directly and clear the air once and for all”
Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro has achieved so much and gone so far as a public official over the years.
At age 16, he became the president of the Kabataaang Barangay in Tarlac province.
Later, he was elected as a member of the Tarlac provincial board. From 1998 to 2007, he represented the First District of Tarlac in Congress.
In 2007, at age 43, Teodoro was appointed Secretary of National Defense under the Arroyo administration.
He even made an unsuccessful bid for president in 2010 under the banner of the Lakas-Kampi party. In 2023, he again assumed the position of Defense Secretary under the Marcos Jr. presidency.
Teodoro’s meteoric rise in Philippine politics has no doubt been shaped by his education in the best schools in the country.
He obtained his Law degree from the University of the Philippines and topped the 1989 Philippine Bar Examinations with an 86.18 percent rating.
In 1997, he obtained his Master of Laws degree from Harvard University and later passed the State Bar of New York.
But Teodoro’s reputation has been tarnished of late by controversy over his Maltese citizenship, revealed only recently through investigative reports.
According to official records, he was issued Maltese Passport 1259234 in Dec. 2016, valid until Dec. 2026.
Despite this, he is reported to have sworn under oath in his Personal Data Sheet that he had never acquired the status of an immigrant or permanent resident of another country.
He also allegedly failed to disclose his dual citizenship, a clear violation of rules requiring full disclosure of foreign nationalities. This omission alone may constitute perjury under Philippine law.
Records of the Bureau of Immigration show that from 2017 to 2021, Teodoro went on at least 34 foreign trips using a Philippine passport, even though he had not yet legally reacquired his Filipino citizenship under Republic Act 9225, the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act. Philippine law—specifically RA 8239, the Philippine Passport Act—explicitly states that only Filipino citizens may hold and use a Philippine passport.
Thus, the use of a Philippine passport during this time, without proper citizenship status, may constitute a criminal offense.
To further complicate matters, it was only in Aug. 2021, or a full four and a half years after he started traveling on a Philippine passport, that Teodoro formally applied to reacquire his Philippine citizenship.
And while he submitted an Affidavit of Renunciation of Allegiance to Malta dated 30 Sept. 2021 as part of his senatorial bid, there is no record that this renunciation was ever filed or acknowledged by the Community Malta Agency, as required by the Maltese Citizenship Act.
In short, by the time Teodoro filed his certificate of candidacy for senator in Oct. 2021, he may still have been a foreign national, a status that could invalidate his candidacy under Philippine election laws and disqualify him from holding public office.
Despite not being a Filipino citizen during the years 2019–2021, Teodoro is alleged to have continued to affirm Filipino citizenship status in his tax filings.
He presented himself as a Filipino public servant, while legally still a Maltese citizen, an act that could constitute fraud and misrepresentation.
In multiple official documents, he is alleged to have made statements that may be construed as deliberate attempts to mislead his true citizenship status.
Teodoro is also alleged to have violated at least three major Philippine laws—RA 9225, RA 8239, and the Omnibus Election Code—not to mention the Constitutional prohibition against dual allegiance.
These actions may not only expose him to administrative, civil, and criminal liabilities, they may also undermine the credibility of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Department of National Defense, and the Marcos Jr. administration, which has promised transparency and good governance time and again.
To be fair, the Department of National Defense has clarified that Secretary Teodoro renounced and gave up his Maltese passport in 2021, before he filed his certificate of candidacy to run for senator.
It said Teodoro had also informed the Bureau of Immigration and the Commission on Elections about his renounced Maltese passport, as well as the Commission on Appointments, before his confirmation as defense chief.
The Defense Secretary should address the issue directly and clear the air once and for all, as he holds a leadership position that requires him to consistently defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity without having to deal with questions about his citizenship status. (Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)
