IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION OF FELIX TAN TO BE ADMITTED A CITIZEN OF THE PHILIPPINES; FELIX TAN, PETITIONER-APPELLEE, VS. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, OPPOSITOR-APPELLANT.

This is an appeal by the Republic
of the Philippines from the decision of the Court
of First Instance of Negros Oriental declaring
petitioner Felix Tan qualified for admission to Philippine citizenship.

The records show that all
requirements to confer jurisdiction on the court below to hear the petition had
been complied with. The evidence shows that the petitioner is a subject of the
Republic of Nationalist China under whose laws Filipinos may be granted the
right to become naturalized citizens; that the petitioner was born on February
25, 1932, in the City of Dumaguete; that the
petitioner is still unmarried; that since birth he had never gone to China; that
he speaks and writes the English language and the Visayan-Cebuano dialect; that lie does not own any real
estate in the Philippines; that tie acquired his elementary, secondary and first
year college education in the public schools and in private schools recognized
by the Government and not limited to any race or nationality and wherein
Philippine history, government and civics are part of their curricula; that the
petition was regularly employed as a salesman in the Sin Chu Huat Store in the City of
Dumaguete from which derived annual salaries amounting
to Pl,560 in 1958, P1,680 in 1959 and Pl,740 in 1960 with free subsistence and
lodging estimated to be valued at P50.00 a month. petitioner declared that in 1961 when the hearing of petition
for admission to Philippine citizenship was he was earning P180.00 a month. The
evidence further shows that the petitioner hart been regularly paying his
personal taxes and he had no tax liability with the Government; that he was duly
registered as an alien and been paying the registration fees therefor; that he is in good health and is not suffering
from any incurable or contagious disease; that corresponding clearance
certificates were issued by different government officers m his favor,
certifying to his good and irreproachable character and that he had never been
accused nor convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude; that he had been
giving contributions to civic and religious organizations; that the petitioner
believes in the principles underlying the Philippine Constitution; that he had
been conducting himself in a proper and irreproachable manner during the entire
period of his residence in the Philippines; that he had been mingling freely and
associating socially with the Filipinos; that he is not opposed to organized
government nor is he affiliated with any associations or group of persons who
uphold and teach doctrines opposed to organized governments; that he is not
defending or teaching the necessity or propriety of violence, personal assaults
or assassination for the success and predominance of man’s ideas; that he is not
a polygamist nor a believer in the practice thereof; that it is his intention in
good faith to become a citizen of the Philippines and for that matter he
renounces all the allegiance and fidelity that he had to any foreign
sovereignty, particularly to the Republic of Nationalist China, of which he is a
citizen or subject; that he had resided continuously to the Philippines from the
date of the filing of his petition for naturalization and would reside therein
up to and after the time of his admission to Philippine citizenship.

After hearing, the lower court
declared that the petitioner has all the qualifications and none of the
disqualifications under Philippine laws lo become a Philippine citizen by
naturalization, and it thereby ordered that naturalization certificate be issued
to him after the expiration of two years from the promulgation of the decision
upon satisfactory proof that he had complied with requisites prescribed by
Republic Act 530. In the present appeal, the Solicitor General, in behalf of the
Republic of the Philippines, maintains that the lower court
erred in finding that the petitioner has all ‘the qualifications and none of the
disqualifications to become a Philippine citizen by naturalization. The
Solicitor General particularly points out that the petitioner does not have a
lucrative trade or profession, which is one of the conditions required by law
for aliens to be admitted to Philippine citizenship. As a matter of fact, .the
city Attorney of Dumaguete City, in representation .of
the Solicitor General, had opposed the petition in the lower court precisely on
the ground that the petitioner did not have a lucrative trade or profession.

Considering the salary received
by the petitioner during the three years prior to the hearing of this case, that
is, P1,560.00 in 1958, P1,680.00 in 1959, P1,740.00 in
1960, or an average of P1,660.00 a year during the said three years, it results
that the petitioner had an average monthly .salary in the sum of P138.00 during
the three years prior to the hearing of this case. At the hearing, which took
place on September 7, 1961, an unsworn statement of
Tan Chu Eng, who claimed to be the manager of Chin
Shu Huat Store, was
presented; and in said certificate it was stated that the petitioner was
employed in the said v store as salesman with the salary of P180.00 a month
»with free board and lodging. This Tan Chu Eng was
.not presented as a witness. The Solicitor General maintains that the
certificate of Tan Chu Eng is a very unreliable piece
of evidence to prove that the petitioner was receiving a salary of P180.00 a
month with free board and lodging. We agree with the Solicitor General that it
was not satisfactorily established that the petitioner was receiving a salary of
P180.00 a month.

On the basis of the highest
salary received by the petitioner during the three years prior to the hearing of
this case, which was P1,740.00 a year in 1960, it can be said that his monthly
salary as of the time he filed his petition for citizenship on January 23, 1961
was P145.00 a month. If to this monthly salary of P145.00 is added the free
board and lodging at the rate of P50.00 a month, then it may be said that the
highest monthly income of the petitioner was around P195.00 a month. The
petitioner did not own any real property or had other
source of income. The petitioner had not filed any income tax return but he had
paid additional residence taxes on the basis of his yearly income for the years
1958, 1959 and 1960.

Lucrative employment means a
gainful employment. It is not only that the person having the employment gets
enough for his ordinary necessities in life. It must be shown that the
employment gives one an income such that there is an appreciable margin of his
income over his expenses as to be able to provide for an adequate support in the
event of unemployment, sickness, or disability to work and thus avoid one’s
becoming the object of charity or a public charge. We believe that the
petitioner-appellee in the present case, who earns
only around P145.00 a month with a free board and lodging estimated to cost
P60.00 a month, does not have an employment that is lucrative enough as to
consider him not subject to the hazards of penury in the event of unemployment,
sickness or disability.

Considering the high cost of
living that has been prevailing, which cost of living has tended to increase
rather than decrease, and the low buying power of the Philippine currency, this
Court has in recent decisions adopted a higher standard in determining whether a
petitioner for Philippine citizenship has a lucrative trade or profession that
would qualify him for admission to Philippine citizenship.

In the case of
Koh Chet alias Hianchit S.
Chua vs. Republic of the
Philippines, G.R.
No. L-17223,
June 30,
1964,
this Court denied the petition for Philippine citizen- ship of the petitioner
who was single and had an employment as a purchaser and salesman in the store of
his mother with a monthly salary of P200.00.

In the case of Alberto Ong Lin Chuan vs. Republic of the
Philippines, L-18550, Feb. 28, 1964, the
petitioner for Philippine citizenship was single and was employed at the Cosmos
Industrial Company with a salary of P200.00 a month with free board and lodging.
This Court held that the petitioner did not have a lucrative trade or profession
that would qualify him for admission to Philippine citizenship.

The situation of the
petitioner-appellee in the present case, as far as
income is concerned, is not any better than that of the petitioners in the two
cases that We have mentioned in the two preceding
paragraphs.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is
reversed, and another one is entered denying the petition of petitioner-appellee for admission to Philippine citizenship. With costs against petitioner-appellee.

Bengzon, C.
J. Bautista Angelo,
Concepcion, Reyes, J.B. L., Barrera, Paredes,
Dizon, Regala, Makalintal and Bengzon, J. P., JJ.,
concur.