The Case of Grace Poe

Bicol, Renz B.

On March ll, 2016, The Supreme Court has solved Grace Poes case about her nationality and
making her an official candidate for presidency. But first what are the Qualifications for
Presidency? These are (a) Natural-born citizen of the Philippines, (b) A registered voter, (c) Able
to read and write, (d) At least forty years of age, (e) Resident of the Philippines for at least ten
years. In order to determine if Poe is really a candidate for presidency, we need to go through the
qualifications
(a) Natural-born citizen of the Philippines. One needs to be a natural-born citizen of the
Philippines to run for presidency, no exceptions. According to Article 4 Section 2.
Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without
having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those who
elect Philippine citizenship in accordance with paragraph. Now focus on the underlined
phrase. As we know Grace Poe was an abandoned newborn infant in the Parish of Jaro,
Iloilo. She was found by Edgardo Militar (a Filipino Citizen) and raised her for the
meantime. After some years she was adopted by Ronald Allan Kelly Poe and Jesusa
Sonara Poe (both Filipino Citizen). If we dont know who Grace Poes parents really are,
that makes her citizenship from birth undefined. For me that makes her ineligible to run
for candidacy. There were some statistics that showed how the percentage of how many
Filipinos where there at Iloilo by the time Poe was founded and it was estimated to
99.63% of the people there are Filipinos. And the SC said that Poe has the typical
Filipino features such as height, flat nasal bridge, straight black hair, almond-shaped eyes
and an oval face, take note that sometimes we misinterpret other people from other
country that they are Filipino because of their physical feature, That does not prove that
she was a newborn Filipino citizen. In those numbers she can only be a newborn Filipino
citizen if the percentage was 100% Filipinos where living at that place when she was
born
On 18 October 2001, she became a naturalized American citizen. On July 7,2009 she
took an Oath of Allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines, she filed with the Bureu of
Immigration a sworn petition to reacquire Philippine citizenship. The moment she does
that does not mean she will gain her natural-born Filipino citizenship back, she will just
be a Filipino citizen again.
(b) When she reached the age of 18 in 1986, she registered as a voter with the local
COMELEC Office in San Juan City.
(c) There is no question on this part.
(d) As said earlier she was found on September 3, 1968. As of September 3,2015 she was 47
years old, more than enough qualified at the required age to run for presidency
(e) Her arrival on March 24, 2005 meant she was a Resident of the Philippines. It is indicated
that Philippines is now her domicile through these information, E-mail correspondence
starting in March 2005 until September 2006 with a freight company to arrange for
shipment of household items from the US to the Philippines, School records of her
children showing the enrollment in a Philippine school and many more.
CONCLUSION:
In my honest opinion I declare Grace Poes candidacy for presidency denied to the fact that she
is not a natural-born Filipino Citizen, this is opinion could be negated if Grace Poes parents
show themselves to the court, did a DNA test and matched Poes DNA. If no evidence is found
about that then she is not a candidate to be a President.