Comelec declares Robredo a ‘non-Filipino’

JUST as he had feared, Jesse Robredo has been declared a non-Filipino citizen by the Commission on Elections in the quo warranto case filed against him by losing Naga City mayoralty candidate Jojo Villafuerte in 2004.

Voting to reverse an earlier en banc ruling of the poll body in 2003 were members of the First Division, Commissioners Romeo Brawner, the ponente, and Nicodemo Ferrer. Commissioner Resurreccion Borra was the lone dissenter, maintaining his original position that Robredo is a natural-born Filipino.

The Comelec decision deemed Robredo to be of Chinese descent as his grandfather, Lim Teng (later christened Juan Robredo), remained a Chinese citizen in the absence of any proof that he established permanent residence in the country. Further, the decision claimed that Robredo has forfeited his privilege of availing a Philippine citizenship by not performing any act showing his intention to become Filipino in all his 49 years, even denying such acts as his having been born in the country and his filing of certificates of candidacy.

Read the majority decision penned by Commissioner Brawner here.

This now paves the way for Robredo’s eventual disqualification from the mayoralty race as Villafuerte, barangay captain of Peñafrancia and a nephew of Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, filed a new case with the poll body based on the same grounds assailing Robredo’s citizenship last April 3.

Robredo anticipates a swift decision on the case to come out anytime before May 13 as it has been assigned to the same Comelec division. The incumbent mayor says he will be filing a motion for reconsideration but is not expecting an impartial judgment. Two of the commissioners who ruled against him in the quo warranto case, he says, have close ties to Luis Villafuerte — Brawner, a law classmate at the University of the Philippines, and Ferrer, a former law office partner.

Robredo had asked that the two inhibit from his case, but his request was denied. In the decision, Brawner argued that the reasons Robredo cited do not warrant inhibition on his part and Ferrer’s as their past association with Villafuerte is “not indicative of any bias or partiality with respect to the resolution of the case.”

Saying he has made it his personal battle “to see the issue on my citizenship settled once and for all,” the Naga city mayor will appeal the decision on the quo warranto case all the way to the Supreme Court.

As for his candidacy, Robredo is still discussing with his family, partymates and advisers on what best move to take next. In anticipation of the disqualification case, his wife, Ma. Leonor, had reluctantly agreed to file her certificate of candidacy for mayor at the last minute. Though still reluctant, she might just continue her husband’s fight in the mayoralty race against Villafuerte.

This is actually the fifth election (see table) that Robredo has had to contend with a citizenship case assailing his being Filipino on the basis of allegations that his grandfather and father were Chinese. In 1992, running against Villafuerte’s sister, Pura Luisa Villafuerte-Magtuto, he had to face two cases filed against him by Orlando Tan, a known supporter of Villafuerte.

Robredo grappled with three more citizenship cases lodged against him by another Villafuerte-anointed candidate, Rodolfo Fortuno, a former city councilor who opposed him during the 2001 mayoral race. In 2004, two more cases were filed by his two-time mayoralty rival, Jojo Villafuerte, with the Comelec.

It was only in 1988 and 1995, when Robredo ran unopposed for his initial third term as mayor, that no citizenship case was filed against him. All the cases have since been dismissed by various government agencies that heard them — the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation, Comelec (thrice, including the 2003 en banc ruling), and the Supreme Court — until this recent decision.

Nagueños are not at all surprised. The only way anybody can defeat Robredo, they say, is to kick him out of the race.

As Robredo also observes: “No one has even bothered to take a look at my citizenship until I decided to run for public office and until I opposed them. It’s very ironic because when I was their candidate, I was a Filipino citizen. When I became their opponent, I was not a Filipino citizen anymore.”

Robredo severed ties with Luis Villafuerte months after he won as mayor for the first time as his uncle’s chosen candidate in 1988. The fallling out was a result of the latter’s intervention with how the former would run the city, particularly in the choice of Naga’s chief of police.

Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. says this latest Comelec decision is a travesty of justice and an oppressive act against Naga Cty voters who elected Robredo. He hopes the Supreme Court will rectify the error.