G.R. No. L-1551. October 31, 1949
NICANOR TAN, PETITIONER AND APPELLEE, VS. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, OPPOSITOR AND APPELLANT.
REYES, J.:
Court of First Instance of Cagayan, granting Nicanor Tan’s petition for
naturalization.
The uncontradicted proof shows that the petitioner Nicanor Tan
was born in Aparri, Cagayan, on January 10, 1921, the son of Tan Lingco and Chua
Lian, both Chinese; that he obtained his primary education in Aparri, his
intermediate education in Manila, and his high school education in Mapua
Institute of Technology in Manila; that he speaks English, Tagalog, and Ilocano
and writes English; that he took an engineering course in the University of the
Philippines and was on the day of the trial a third year student in the college
of engineering of the Mapua Institute of Technology; that although a student in
Manila, his permanent residence is Aparri, and he is a partner in the firm Tan
Boon Diok & Bros. in which he has invested P5,000; that he is married to San
Sun and has three children, namely, Tan Chiong Heng, born in Manila on November
17, 1942; Tan Chiong Lu, born in Baggao, Cagayan, on December 8, 1944, and Susan
Tan, born in Manila on December 15, 1946; that he intends to send his children
to the public schools.
Petitioner says that he believes in the principles underlying
the Philippine Constitution and is not opposed to organized government; that he
does not belong to any group teaching subversive doctrines or ideas against the
government; that he does not believe in communism and is not a polygamist; that
he is not suffering from mental alienation or any contagious disease; and that
he has not been convicted of any crime, involving moral turpitude. Petitioner,
however, admits that he has not filed with the Bureau of Justice (now Office of
the Solicitor General) a declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the
Philippines and that he does not know whether the laws of China accord to
Filipinos the right to become citizens or subjects of that country.
The Solicitor General contends that the lower court erred (1)
in not finding that petitioner has failed to establish that he can write any of
the principal Philippine dialects, (2) in holding that petitioner is exempted
from the prerequisite of filing a declaration of his intention to become a
Filipino citizen, and (3) in holding that the laws of China permit Filipinos to
become naturalized citizens or subjects thereof.
As to the first contention, the evidence shows that petitioner
speaks both Ilocano and Tagalog, as might well be expected from his long
residence in Cagayan and Manila, and the evidence further shows that he has
finished both his primary and secondary education in this country and was, at
the time of the trial, a third year student in the college of engineering of the
Mapua Institute of Technology in Manila. It being common knowledge that the
Philippine alphabet is substantially the same as the English alphabet, and that
a high school graduate in English would have no difficulty in writing in the
dialect he speaks, it is not illogical to assume that petitioner can also write
both Ilocano and Tagalog.
With respect to the second error assigned, Section 5 of the
Revised Naturalization Law (Commonwealth Act No. 473, as amended by Commonwealth
Act No. 535) requires the applicant for Philippine citizenship to file with the
Bureau of Justice (now Office of the Solicitor General), one year prior to his
petition for naturalization, a sworn declaration of his bona fide
intention to become a citizen of the Philippines. Section 6 of the same law,
however, exempts certain persons from this requirement. The section reads:
“SEC. 6. Persons exempt from requirement to make a
declaration of intention.—Persons born in the Philippines and have received
their primary and secondary education in public schools or those recognized by
the Government and not limited to any race or nationality, and those who have
resided continuously in the Philippines for a period of thirty years or more
before filing their application, may be naturalized without having to make a
declaration of intention upon complying with the other requirements of this Act.
To such requirements shall be added that which establishes that the applicant
has given primary and secondary education to all his children in the public
schools or in private schools recognized by the Government and not limited to
any race or nationality. The same shall be understood applicable with respect to
the widow and minor children of an alien who has declared his intention to
become a citizen of the Philippines, and dies before he is actually
naturalized.”
It is not disputed that herein petitioner, as a person born in
the Philippines and possessed of the required educational qualifications, comes
within the purview of the first sentence of the above section. The second
sentence, however, adds, as a further requisite to exemption from the filing of
the declaration of intention prescribed in section 5, a provision to the effect
that the applicant has “given primary and secondary education to all his
children,” and the Solicitor General points out that this additional requisite
is lacking in the present case because petitioner’s eldest child (born November
17, 1942 was barely four years old when the petition for naturalization was
filed. It is argued that the primary and secondary education required of the
children is one that has already been given, that is, finished and completed and
not one that is yet to be given or completed. But while conditions prescribed
for the naturalization of aliens are strictly construed, we are not for
enforcing the rule to the point of absurdity, or to the extent of requiring the
impossible. In the present case, as all of petitioner’s children are below
school age, it would be absurd to expect them to have finished the primary and
secondary courses. As was said by this Court in the case of Thomas Pritchard vs.
Republic of the Philippines, 46 Off. Gaz., Supp. (1), p. 26[1]—
“* * * The legal provision requiring that the applicant has
given primary and secondary education to all his children in the private or
public schools recognized by the government should be construed in the sense
that, if the applicant has children, and they are of school age, they should be
given primary or secondary education In the schools mentioned by the law. The
words has given should be interpreted to mean that the children, if of school
age, should be given the opportunity of getting primary or secondary education,
by their opportune enrolment and attendance in the schools mentioned by the law,
but not that both must have completed in said schools both primary and secondary
education. The narrow point of view of appellant can be shown by the absurdities
to which it leads. In the first case, it will compel applicants to have in the
first place children. What about unmarried persons or sterile spouses? Because
the former can not procreate without indulging in illicit sexual relations or
the latter by limitations imposed by nature, shall they be denied the
opportunity of being naturalized, regardless of their substantial merits to
apply for it? Suppose the applicant has children who are already old, are
university graduates, have careers and have absorbed all the knowledge that can
possibly be imparted in our primary and secondary public schools, shall said
children be compelled to attend said schools in the company of youngsters that
can be their grandchildren, before their parent is given the opportunity of
being naturalized? Suppose the applicant has children of school age and they are
enrolled in our public schools but by some constitutional defects they are
unable to be graduated, regardless of the years they spend in school, or due to
illness they have to stop their schooling, because to save their lives is of
more paramount importance than their education, shall said applicant be deprived
of the opportunity of being Filipino citizen even if he has rendered meritorious
services to our country?”
And in the more recent case of In re Application of Roa
Yrostorza, 46 Off. Gaz., Supp. (11), p. 179,[1] involving the same provision of law, this
Court said:
“If the applicant’s children have gone through high school and
one of them is in the process of completing it, we think he may be considered to
possess the additional requirement of Section 6. The clause ‘has given primary
and secondary education to his, children etc.’ should be construed in relation
to other provisions of the Naturalization Law; and thus construed, the phrase
means that the applicant has enrolled his minor children in school, which is all
that is required of an applicant who has filed a declaration of intention to
become a Philippine citizen. The law could not have intended to impose on an
applicant who was born or has lived for more than 30 years in the Philippines a
more stringent condition than on one who was born outside the country and has
not resided therein so long. There is nothing in the filing of a declaration of
intention which makes the declarant a more desirable citizen or gives greater
assurance of his loyalty to his prospective new country. The courts are not to
give words a meaning which would lead to absurd or unreasonable consequences or
a meaning which would render compliance with the provision impossible in many
cases.“The conclusion that the requirement of section 6 as to
education is no different from that of section 5 results not only from a
consideration of the entire law but also from the application of the rules of
grammar. The pronoun ‘that’ in the clause, ‘To such requirements shall be added
that which establishes that the applicant has given primary and secondary
education to all his children,’ relates, in our opinion, to the requirement in
section 5 that ‘the declarant * * * has enrolled his minor children, if any, in
any of the public schools etc.’ In the phrase ‘that which’ the first word is
‘used when the reference is emphatically to what precedes. (Webster’s New
International Dictionary.)”
To the same effect is the decision of this Court in Yee Bo Mann
vs. Republic of the Philippines, 46 Off. Gaz., Supp. (11), p. 201,[2] holding that enrollment in the proper
school is sufficient compliance with the legal provision in question.
Following the trend of the above decisions, and giving the
requirement of section 6 of the Revised Naturalization Law as to the education
of the children of an alien applicant for Philippine citizenship a rational
interpretation, we hold that the lower court did not err in holding that herein
petitioner is exempt from the prerequisite of filing a declaration of his
intention to become a Filipino citizen.
Regarding the third error assigned, this Court has already
accepted it as a fact in previous naturalization cases that the laws of China
permit Filipinos to naturalize in that country. (Yee Bo kann vs. Republic of the
Philippines, supra, Lock Ben Ping vs. Republic of the Philippines, 47
Off. Gaz., 176[3].)
In view of the foregoing, the decision appealed from is
affirmed. Without costs.
Moran, C.J., Ozaeta, Paras, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason,
and Torres, JJ., concur.
[1] 81 Phil., 244.
[1] 83 Phil., 721.
[2] 83 Phil., 743.
[3] 84 Phil., p. 217.