Facts:
Petitioner Oh Hek How having been
granted naturalization through his petition filed a motion alleging that he had
complied with the requirements of Republic Act No. 530 and praying that he be
allowed to take his oath of allegiance as such citizen and issued the corresponding
certificate of naturalization. The Court of First Instance of Zamboanga del Norte
issued forthwith an order authorizing the taking of said oath. On that same
date, petitioner took it and the certificate of naturalization was issued to
him. The Government seasonably gave notice of its intention to appeal from said
order of February9, 1966 and filed its record on appeal among the grounds that
the oath was taken prior to judgment having been final and executory.
Issue:
- Is the oath valid
- Whether or not a permission to
renounce citizenship is necessary from the Minister of the Interior of
Nationalist China.
Held:
Held:
First issue:
The order of February 9, 1966
(oath-taking) had not — and up to the present has not become final and
executory in view of the appeal duly taken by the Government.
2nd Issue:
It is argued that the permission
is not required by our laws and that the naturalization of an alien, as a
citizen of the Philippines ,
is governed exclusively by such laws and cannot be controlled by any foreign
law.
However, the question of how a
Chinese citizen may strip himself of that status is necessarily governed
—pursuant to Articles 15 and 16 of our Civil Code — by the laws of China , not by those of the Philippines . As
a consequence, a Chinese national cannot be naturalized as a citizen of the Philippines , unless
he has complied with the laws of Nationalist China requiring previous
permission of its Minister of the Interior for the renunciation of nationality.
Section 12 of Commonwealth Act
No.473 provides, however, that before the naturalization certificate is issued,
the petitioner shall "solemnly swear," interalia, that he renounces
"absolutely and forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince,
potentate" and particularly to the state "of which" he is "a
subject or citizen." The obvious purpose of this requirement is to divest him
of his former nationality, before acquiring Philippine citizenship, because,
otherwise, he would have two nationalities and owe allegiance to two (2)
distinct sovereignties, which our laws do not permit, except that, pursuant to
Republic Act No. 2639, "the acquisition of citizenship by a natural-born
Filipino citizen from one of the Iberian and any friendly democratic Ibero-American
countries shall not produce loss or forfeiture of his Philippine citizenship,
if the law of that country grants the same privilege to its citizens and such
had been agreed upon by treaty between the Philippines and the foreign country
from which citizenship is acquired."
No comments:
Post a Comment