Basista’s re-elected mayor faces protest
US CITIZENSHIP ISSUE
BASISTA—Mayor Manolito de Leon, who won his re-election bid last May 13 by a measly 67-vote majority, is facing a disqualification case filed by his closest rival who is accusing him of being a naturalized American citizen when he filed his Certificate of Candidacy for the May 13 mid-term election.
The disqualification case was filed by mayoralty candidate Jocelyn Perez last May 6, 2013 and is now pending before the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Perez is further asking the Comelec to proclaim her as the duly elected mayor of Basista in case of De Leon’s disqualification.
Perez alleges that De Leon, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States on April 1, 1985, managed to run for public office in the Philippines after his application for repatriation was granted, but in subsequent acts, the most recent of which were in 2011 and 2012, De Leon had voluntarily and effectively reverted to his earlier status as dual citizen (Filipino and American).
The petitioner revealed that De Leon, despite his renunciation of his American citizenship in 2009, had been found to have used his identification cards and passport indicating his nationality as US-American in departing from the Philippines in the years 2011 and 2012, at which time he was serving as mayor of this town.
Perez and her lawyers invoked a previous Supreme Court decision (Maquiling vs. COMELEC) which ruled that the “act of using a foreign passport… is nevertheless an act which repudiates very oath of renunciation required for a former Filipino citizen who is also a citizen of another country to be qualified to run for elective position.”
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