Ma-yr-zar Martin B.

Teruel
Immigration Law

Reaction Paper for Grace Poe Case

The Supreme Court found in the Poe-Llamanzares case that Foundlings are as a
class, natural born citizens. While the 1935 Constitution is silent as to foundlings, there is
no restrictive language that would exclude them either. Because of silence and ambiguity
in the enumeration, there is a need to examine the intent of the framers 1.

The amendment to the Constitution proposed by constitutionalist Rafols to include

foundlings as natural born citizens was not carried out, not because there was any
objection to the notion that persons of unknown parentage are not citizens, but only
because their number was not enough to merit specific mention. There was no intent or
language that would permit discrimination against foundlings2. On the contrary, all three
Constitutions guarantee the basic right to equal protection of the laws. Likewise, domestic
laws on adoption support the principle that foundlings are Filipinos. These laws do not
provide that adoption confers citizenship upon the adoptee, rather, the adoptee must be
Filipino in the first place to be adopted. Recent legislation all expressly refer to “Filipino
children” and include foundlings as among Filipino children who may be adopted3.

The argument that the process to determine that the child is a foundling leading to
the issuance of a foundling certificate are acts to acquire or perfect Philippine citizenship
is without merit. Hence, the argument that as a foundling, Poe underwent a process in
order to acquire or perfect her Philippine citizenship, is untenable4.

“Having to perform an act” means that the act must be personally done by the
citizen. In this case, the determination of foundling status was done by authorities, not by
Poe5. Second, the object of the process is to determine the whereabouts of the parent,
not the citizenship of the child and last, the process if not analogous to naturalization
proceedings6.

I agree with the decision of the Supreme Court in the Grace Poe-Llamanzares
case because They say that Natural Born Filipinos are those that need not an act to
make them Filipino Citizens. it would be outrageous to think of a scenario where a
foundling or a child would be able to do a positive act to make himself or herself a
Filipino Citizen.

1 Poe-Llamanzares v. COMELEC, G.R. No. 221697, March 8, 2016

2 Id.
3 Id.
4 Id.
5 Id.
6 Id.
 Moreover, If we consider these foundlings as stateless persons it would bring
them much discrimination and disadvantage as they will be far less privileged than
normal citizens of a country and there would be no government or country that would be
able to protect them as there is no “Government for Stateless persons” existing yet.
However, my one reservation about this case is that just because a child is found
in the Philippines it would make him/her Filipino, this view would make our country
adhere to the principle of jus soli. Which is contrary to what I have learned in my
Constitutional Law Class that were are adhering to the Principle of jus sanguinis. With
that said this minor inconsistency does not outweigh the way of life of these foundlings if
they were found to be stateless persons.

Lastly, I think it is with great humanitarian consideration that the Justices elected
to vote in favor of classifying foundlings as Natural Born citizens because if they were
not to classify them as such there would be a lot of people who would be discriminated
or looked down upon. This case again proves that Law is the great equalizer of
mankind.