TAN YU CHIN, PETITIONER AND APPELLEE, VS. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, OPPOSITOR AND APPELLANT.

This case started with a petition filed by Tan Yu Chin on September 11, 1958
in the Court of First Instance of Leyte to be admitted to Philippine
citizenship. After the case was once set for trial and postponed, petitioner, on
July 6, 1959, moved to have his petition for naturalization dismissed after he
is declared already a Filipino citizen on the ground that he was born in Job,
Sulu, Philippines in the year 1896, of a Filipino mother and a Chinese father
who had not been legally married to each other, and that he has resided in the
Philippines from the date of his birth up to the present.

At the trial, petitioner testified that he was born in Jolo, Sulu, on
December 10, 1896, of a Chinese father, Tan Chan, and a Filipina mother, Mora
Sia; that his parents were not legally married to each other, and this fact he
learned from his mother because he was only two years old when his father died
in 1898; that his mother died in Jolo, Sulu, in 1924; that in 1919, he went to
Sandakan, British North Borneo, but returned to the Philippines in the same
year, as shown by the landing certificate Exhibit “A”; that he resided in Jolo
from 1919 to 1925; that he went to China in 1926, returned to the Philippines in
1928, and has since then up to the present time continuously resided in Maasin,
Leyte, that he does not have a birth certificate, because there is no such thing
in Moroland, nor was he baptized in any church; that his birth was not
registered when the law on civil registry was first enforced in this country in
1931 because he did not know the law; and that he and his family are registered
as Chinese aliens and have the aiien certificates of registration required by
law, because being the son of a Chinese father, he thought he was Chinese.

In addition to his testimony, petitioner introduced as independent evidence
of the date and place of his birth the information appearing on the landing
certificate Exhibit “A”, that the date and place of his birth are “1896” and
“Jolo, P.I.” (respectively marked as Exhibits “A-l” and “A-2”).

On the basis of the above evidence, the trial court rendered judgment on July
29, 1959, declaring petitioner Tan Yu Chin “a Filipino having been born on
December 10, 1896. in Jolo, Sulu, out of wedlock to a Filipina mother and to a
Cninese father who died in 1898”, and dismissing his application for
naturalization “for being unnecessary”. From this judgment, the provincial
fiscal appealed.

The appeal is clearly meritorious.

We have already ruled in the recent case of Danilo Channie Tan vs.
Republic, 107 Phil., 632, that a judicial declaration that a person is a
Filipino citizen can not be made in a petition for naturalization wherein it is
prayed that petitioner “be admitted a citizen of the Philippines”, for the
following reasons:

1. Under our laws, there can be no action or proceeding for the judicial
   declaration of the citizenship of an individual. Courts of justice exist for the
   settlement of justiciable controversies, which imply a given right, legally
   demandable and enforceable, an act or omission violative of said right, and a
   remedy, granted or sanctioned by law, for said breach of right. As an incident
   only of the adjudication of the rights of the parties to a controversy, the
   court may pass upon, and make a pronouncement relative to, their status.
   Otherwise, such a pronouncement is beyond judicial power. Thus, for instance, no
   action or proceeding may be instituted for a declaration to, the effect that
   plaintiff or petitioner is married, or single, or a legitimate child, although a
   finding thereon may be made as a necessary premise to justify a given relief
   available only to one enjoying said status. At times, the law permits the
   acquisition of a given status, such as naturalization, by judicial decree. But,
   there is no similar legislation authorizing the institution of a Judicial
   proceeding to declare that a given person is part of our citizenry.

2. The petition for naturalization in this case, and the declaration of
   intention filed by petitioner herein, state that he is a citizen of Nationalist
   China and that he wants to become a citizen of the Philippines. Moreover, in the
   former he prays to be “admitted” as such citizen. In other words, the question
   whether or not petitioner is a citizen of the Philippines has never been put in
   issue in this case. As a consequence, when the lower court declared him to be
   such a citizen, it went beyond the issues raised by the pleadings, and,
   accordingly, acted in a manner so irregular as to, in effect, exceed its
   jurisdiction. We have not overlooked the decision in Palanca vs. Republic
   (80 Phil., 578; 45 Off. Gaz., Supp., p. 204) in which Palanca was declared a
   citizen of the Philippines in the proceedings for his naturalization. However,
   through appropriate pleadings, the petitioner in that case had averred that he
   possessed such status, thus putting the same in issue.”

The above holding, being the correct exposition and interpretation of the law
involved, overrules our holdings in Pablo y Sen, et al., vs. Republic, G.
R. No. L-6868, April 30, 1955, and other previous cases, to the effect that the
court can make a declaration that an applicant for naturalization is a Filipino
citizen in the same naturalization proceedings if the evidence so warrants.

Even assuming, therefore, that herein petitioner has shown that he is already
a Filipino citizen, the lower court exceeded its power, authority,, and
jurisdiction in declaring him to be such in those naturalization
proceedings.

Wherefore, the judgment appealed from is set aside without prejudice to the
continuation of the proceedings relative to petitioner’s application for
naturalization, if he should desire. Costs against petitioner Tan Yu
Chin.

Bengzon, C.J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion,
Barrera, Paredes, and Dizon, JJ., concur.