THE SUPREME Court has dismissed a Batanes mayoral bet’s petition seeking to reinstate his 2013 candidacy, saying his renouncement of Canadian citizenship does not automatically enable him to meet the residency requirement.
In an emailed statement, SC Public Information Office Chief Theodore O. Te said the SC en banc voted 11-0 to junk the petition by Rogelio Caballero against the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) findings of material misrepresentations in his certificate of candidacy.
Since Mr. Caballero renounced his foreign citizenship on Sept. 13, 2012, only six months prior to the election, he could not meet the one-year residency requirement.
This rejected his argument that Comelec should have allowed him to run because he did not lose his domicile of origin when he was naturalized, having been born in the town.
He said that despite becoming a Canadian citizen, he merely left Uyugan temporarily and regularly vacationed in his hometown.
But the high court said naturalization in a foreign country results in the abandonment of his original domicile. It noted that to acquire Canadian citizenship, one must hold a permanent resident status, effectively transferring his domicile to Canada.
As a result, Mr. Caballero had to reestablish his domicile in Uyugan, which he only did when it renounced his citizenship on Sept. 13, 2012.
However, this falls short of the one-year residency requirement; the elections were held on May 13, 2013.
Since Mr. Caballero stated in his CoC (Certificate of Candidacy) that he had been a resident of Uyugan for one year prior to the elections, the high court affirmed the Comelec’s ruling that he committed material misrepresentation in his CoC. -- Vince Alvic Alexis F. Nonato
source: Businessworld
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