Subject: Constitutional Law 1

Topic: Citizenship; Dual Citizenship and Dual Allegiance

Title: Mercado vs. Manzano
Citation: G.R. No. 135083 May 26, 1999

Facts:
Petitioner Ernesto S. Mercado and private respondent Eduardo B. Manzano were candidates
for vice mayor of the City of Makati in the May 11, 1998 elections. The other one was Gabriel V.
Daza III, by which Manzano won. The proclamation of private respondent was suspended in
view of a pending petition for disqualification filed by a certain Ernesto Mamaril who alleged
that private respondent was not a citizen of the Philippines but of the United States. In its
resolution, dated May 7, 1998,2 the Second Division of the COMELEC granted the petition of
Mamaril and ordered the cancellation of the certificate of candidacy of private respondent on
the ground that he is a dual citizen and, under §40(d) of the Local Government Code, persons
with dual citizenship are disqualified from running for any elective position.

In his answer to the petition filed on April 27, 1998, the respondent admitted that he is
registered as a foreigner with the Bureau of Immigration under Alien Certificate of Registration
and alleged that he is a Filipino citizen because he was born in 1955 of a Filipino father and a
Filipino mother. He was born in the United States, San Francisco, California, September 14,
1955, and is considered in American citizen under US Laws. But notwithstanding his
registration as an American citizen, he did not lose his Filipino citizenship. It would appear that
respondent Manzano is born a Filipino and a US citizen. In other words, he holds dual
citizenship. Respondent claimed that when heattained the age of majority, he registered
himself as a voter, and voted in the elections of 1992, 1995 and 1998, which effectively
renounced his US citizenship under American law. Under Philippine law, he no longer had U.S.
citizenship.

Issue:
Whether or not the respondent has dual citizenship.

Ruling:
No. The case of Parado, it states that [W]hen a person applying for citizenship by naturalization
takes an oath that he renounce, his loyalty to any other country or government and solemnly
declares that he owes his allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines, the condition imposed
by law is satisfied and compiled with.
However, in the case of Frivaldo, by filing a certificate of candidacy when he ran for his present
post, private respondent elected Philippine citizenship and in effect renounced his American
citizenship. By the laws of the United States, petitioner Frivaldo lost his American citizenship
when he took his oath of allegiance to the Philippine Government when he ran for Governor in
1988, in 1992, and in 1995. Every certificate of candidacy contains an oath of allegiance to the
Philippine Government.

Thus, private respondent's oath of allegiance to the Philippines, when considered with the fact
that he has spent his youth and adulthood, received his education, practiced his profession as
an artist, and taken part in past elections in this country, leaves no doubt of his election of
Philippine citizenship.