THE Supreme Court should consider the implications of its decision on Filipino foundlings when it resolves the disqualification cases against Senator Grace Poe who is running for president in the May 9 national and local elections, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said Tuesday.
She made the comment even as she said that the country’s adoption laws on Filipino children presumed that foundlings were Filipino citizens.
Poe’s detractors claim she is not qualified to run for president because she is not a natural-born Filipino citizen because she is a foundling.
Associate Justice Marvic Leonen shared Sereno’s sentiment, saying the Court should ensure that no one was marginalized when the high court rendered its judgment on Poe’s cases.
During the continuation of the oral arguments on the disqualification cases against Poe, Sereno presented two laws on the adoption of Filipino children indicating that Congress accorded foundlings the constitutional presumption of being Filipino citizens.
Sereno, interpellating Poe’s lawyer Alexander Poblador, said foundlings were covered under Republic Act 8552 or the Act Establishing the Rules and Policies on the Domestic Adoption of Filipino Children and for Other Purposes.
She said the law provides that in the case of foundlings, the child placement agency should exert all efforts to find his or her biological parents. If its efforts fail, the child will be registered as a foundling and considered abandoned.
“Meaning foundlings are covered by the rules on the adoption of Filipino children. What do you see from that?” Sereno asked Poblador.
“That could only mean your honor that under this law a foundling is considered a Filipino, otherwise the court cannot decree their adoption,” Poblador said.
Subsequently, Sereno showed Republic Act 8043, the law governing the inter-country adoption of Filipino children and indicating that foundlings fall within the coverage of the inter-country adoption act of Filipino children.
A provision of RA 8043 provides the need for a foundling certificate to be submitted in the cases of children with unknown biological parents.
“So it means foundlings fall within the coverage of the inter-country adoption act of Filipino children.
Leonen said the high court “should prevent the oppression of the marginalized” when it renders judgment on the petitions filed by Poe seeking a reversal of the Commission on Elections decision canceling her Certificate of Candidacy over the questions on her residency and citizenship.
“Whatever doctrine we come out here will be a doctrine with all its implications,” Leonen said.
He said the country’s colonial history showed that Spanish and American colonizers implemented “gradations of citizenship” that led to oppression. Rey E. Requejo
“Should we also not take into account our colonial past, where we have to prevent a situation where there are second- and third-class citizens in the country “• more than what the Constitution requires?” he said.
“Our colonial history should inform us, this Court, that we should prevent the oppression of the marginalized.”
Poblador said no evidence had been presented to disprove their claim that Poe, although a foundling, was presumed to be a natural-born Filipino citizen.
He insisted that the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion when it granted the petitions filed before it seeking the cancellation of Poe’s certificate of candidacy for president on the ground she was not a natural-born Filipino citizen and for failure to meet the 10-year residency requirement.
He stressed that Poe was considered a natural-born Filipino citizen although her parents were not known. Her critics should prove that both her parents were foreigners to prove that she was not a natural-born Filipino citizen.
Poblador also told the justices that Poe had lived in the Philippines since birth except for some 14 years when she was in the United States.