Poe-Llamanzares v. Commission on Elections, G.R. Nos.

221697 & 221698-700, 08 March 2016

Doctrine:
FOUNDLING ISSUE
domestic laws on adoption also support the principle that foundlings are Filipinos. These laws do not
provide that adoption confers citizenship upon the adoptee. Rather, the adoptee must be a Filipino in the
first place to be adopted. The most basic of such laws is Article 15 of the Civil Code sum, all of the
international law conventions and instruments on the matter of nationality of foundlings were designed
to address the plight of a defenseless class which suffers from a misfortune not of their own making. We
cannot be restrictive as to their application if we are a country, which calls itself civilized, and a member
of the community of nations.
RESIDENCY ISSUE
the COMELEC refused to consider that petitioner's domicile had been timely changed as of 24 May 2005.
In this connection, the COMELEC also took it against petitioner that she had entered the Philippines visa-
free as a balikbayan. Balikbayans are not ordinary transients. The COMELEC, by its own admission,
disregarded the evidence that petitioner actually and physically returned here on 24 May 2005 not
because it was false, but only because COMELEC took the position that domicile could be established only
from petitioner's repatriation under R.A. No. 9225 in July 2006. However, it does not take away the fact
that in reality, petitioner had returned from the U.S. and was here to stay permanently, on 24 May 2005.
COMELEC’s JURISDICTION
The prior determination of qualification may be by statute, by executive order or by a judgment of a
competent court or tribunal.

Article IX-C, Sec 2 of the Constitution provides for the powers and functions of the COMELEC, and
deciding on the qualifications or lack thereof of a candidate is not one among them.

Clearly, the amendment done in 2012 is an acceptance of the reality of absence of an authorized
proceeding for determining before election the qualifications of candidate. Such that, as presently
required, to disqualify a candidate there must be a declaration by a final judgment of a competent court
that the candidate sought to be disqualified "is guilty of or found by the Commission to be suffering
from any disqualification provided by law or the Constitution."