IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION OF KOH CHET ALIAS HIANCHIT S. CHUA TO BE ADMITTED A CITIZEN OF THE PHILIPPINES. KOH CHET ALIAS HIANCHIT S. CHUA, PETITIONER AND APPELLEE, VS. REPUB…

Appeal by the Solicitor General from the decision of the Court of
First Instance of Manila, Branch X, granting the petition for
naturalization of petitioner-appellee Koh Chet alias Hianthit S. Chua.

The appeal is based on two grounds: (1) absence of certain
indispensable qualifications for conferment of citizenship by
naturalization upon petitioner and (2) lack of credibility on the part
of his witnesses.

Petitioner’s evidence, oral and documentary, bears on the following
facts: Born in Manila on May 5, 1934, he has since resided in the same
city continuously except when he went to China for a six-month visit at
the age of one year and again for a longer sojourn of eleven months in
1046-47. Still single, he works as purchaser and salesman in his
mother’s store at a monthly salary of P200.00. He finished elementary
cduwation at the Anglo-Chinese school, aftar which he moved tn to and
graduated from the Boy’s High School of the Far Eastern University. At
the time he testified he was a fifth year student in Chemical
Engineering in the same institution. He professes adherence to our
constitutional principles and a desire to adopt Filipino ways and
customs, and denies affiliation with any society which upholds
doctrines antagonistic to organized government. He has no record of
having contracted any incurable contagious disease, nor of having been
convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude.

The insufficiency in the foregoing qualifications, as pointed out by
the Solicitor General, refers to his employment and income. The law
requires that an applicant for naturalization must be engaged in a
lucrative occupation. The reason, of course, is obvious and has been
enunciated in other cases decided by this Court. Does petitioner’s
salary of P200.00 a month, assuming that he does receive it, satisfy
the requirement? Recent decisions have ruled negatively on this
question, considering the present purchasing value of our currency (Cf.
Ong Ling Chuan vs. Republic, G.R. No. L-18550, February 28, 1964). But
the very truth of petitioner’s testimony as to his income is doubtful.
His mother’s business, where he claims to be employed, is a mere
sari-sari store. We are not certain that it can afford to pay the
amount of his salary, or that he is paid for actual work done and not
partly as a gratuitous dole from a mother to her son. The point is
pertinent and material, considering that petitioner is a student in
engineering and therefore must devote a great deal of his time to his
studies, leaving little of it for his alleged employment. In fact in
his original petition he averred that he was merely helping as
seller-clerk in the family store at Dakota Street, in return for which
his mother was supporting him, but without giving him any definite
monthly sum by way of salary. The allegation concerning his income of
P200.00 came later as an amendment to the petition.

On the second ground relied upon by the Solicitor General we do find
that petitioner’s witnesses—Carmen Basilio and Marcos Carolino—have
given inconsistent statements that materially detract from their
credibility. Thus, for instance, Carmen said that petitioner’s father
died an air-raid shelter during the war, while according to Marcos, who
first came to know petitioner in 1946, the father died of a heart
attack inside his house. On the other hand, appellant’s Exhibit 3 is an
affidavit subscribed by petitioner’s father in 1950, attesting to the
loss of petitioner’s “immigrant certificate of residence No. 16968.”
These inconsistencies, and other minor ones we have noted In the
record, are important not necessarily in relation to the truth or
falsity of the facts involved but rather as an indication that the
witnesses had not known petitioner intimately enough for them to be
able to vouch for his qualifications for citizenship. Indeed they did
not declare at all that he had behaved in a proper and irreproachable
manner during the entire period of his stay in the Philippines. And
having admitted on the stand that they had not even read the
Constitution (Marcos was a rig-driver who could hardly be expected to
do so) they were in no position to attest truthfully to petitioner’s
adherence to the principles underlying that fundamental instrument.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is reversed and the petition is denied, with costs.

Bengzon, C. J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L., Paredes and Regala, JJ., concur.