Judge rules in Quezon City disqualification case

MANILA, Philippines - A Quezon City congressman succeeded in the citizenship case he filed against his rival, a daughter of tobacco magnate Lucio Tan, after the Metropolitan Trial Court ordered her name stricken off the voters’ list in the district.

In a seven-page decision, Quezon City Judge Augustus Diaz granted the petition of Rep. Vincent “Bingbong” Crisologo to “delist” the name of 40-year-old Vivienne Khao Tan, an American citizen, because she took her allegiance as a Filipino voter belatedly.

The court said Tan cannot be considered a Filipino citizen at the time she sought to be registered as a voter because she took her allegiance as Filipino on Dec. 1, 2009, or 36 days after her application for registration was filed before the Commission on Elections.

Crisologo is seeking his third re-election as congressman of the first district in the May polls.

The court likewise pointed out that when Tan took her oath of allegiance as a Filipino, it only meant that “she renounced any and all allegiance to the government of the United States of America.” “This act is again a clear showing that she was an American and not a Filipino citizen at the time she registered as a voter on Oct. 26, 2009,” the judge stressed.

Violation of law

Crisologo said he has decided to seek Tan’s disqualification as a voter and congressional candidate because “glaring violations of law are being committed” in her desire to seek a public office. The fact that she took an oath of allegiance in December is a clear manifestation of “her lack of Philippine citizenship upon her registration,” the court said.

Dual citizenship cannot apply to Tan’s case, however, because she became a naturalized US citizen in January 1993, when RA 9225, or the dual citizenship law, “was not yet passed into law,” which does not have a retroactive effect.

Filipino citizen

For her part, Tan said, “I am a Filipino citizen, Congressman Crisologo’s statements that I am not one, are not only malicious, they are outright lies. His own petition has attempted to attack not my candidacy, but my right to vote. Strangely enough, his case fell in the sala of a judge who admitted in open court, that he is a personal friend of Congressman Crisologo. Since I have appealed the case, his attempts to condition the mind of the public that I am no longer in the running are going to fail. This tainted decision is not final and has no effect whatsoever on my right to vote, or to run for office. The law is against him and I will prove it with finality, Tan said. She added, “Crisologo should know this, I am not afraid of a challenge, but it appears that he is. This early in the game, he knows that he needs to hit the one candidate that can defeat him.”

Tan who entered the race for Congress in the first district of Quezon City was targeted for disqualification by incumbent Crisologo.

However, since the said decision by Diaz has not yet become final, Tan is still in the running. I consider this a challenge. The incumbent seems to be afraid of me. Well, we’ll give him a contest he won’t forget. Unlike him, I fight fair, but I fight hard,” Tan said. 

Lawyer Christian Robert Lim, legal counsel to Tan says, “Ms. Tan is fully qualified to run. The law itself says that no one can lose his citizenship.” 

Tan’s appeal is now pending before the Regional Trial Courts of Quezon City.