EDITORIAL - Foundling apart from citizenship, residency

A few weeks back, Susan Roces, the adoptive mother of Senator Grace Poe, has come out swinging on the matter of Poe's being a foundling. Like Poe and many others, either Susan honestly believes her daughter is being demeaned as a person on account of her being a foundling or was conveniently led into believing that that was the intention when the subject of her being a foundling was brought to the fore in light of questions about her citizenship and residency.

Regardless of whether the misunderstanding was innocent or by design, it is still a misunderstanding – that Poe's being a foundling is at the core of the citizenship and residency issue. But a dispassionate perusal of the issue would show that Poe's being a foundling is a matter of fact, one that would always come up in every telling and retelling of  her life story, regardless of whether there is any question or issue brought up against her or not.

There is a need to separate the fact of Poe's being a foundling and the issues of citizenship and residency that are being raised against her. They do not necessarily have to be taken together. In fact, they should never be together. They only happen to be that way because in tracing the circumstances relevant to the issues on her citizenship and residency, it cannot be helped to go back to where her story began. And her story just cannot but begin with her being a foundling.

Now, Poe believes the citizenship and residency questions raised against her are politically motivated. Perhaps they are. But it is important to know what Poe is really trying to say. If she is saying it as a matter of fact, then who can really argue against a fact. She does not live in an abbey anyway. And she is deep into politics where political motivations are served for breakfast, lunch or dinner. In politics they question anything. The color of one's teeth can be a health issue.

But if Poe is saying that because the questions are politically motivated she does not have to answer them anymore, or worse, that they have been invalidated, then she has a very serious problem, one that can give rise to another question about her capacity to lead the country as president, which by definition is the chief executive and, therefore, the lead implementor of all its laws, including the law pertaining to the qualifications of anyone seeking the presidency.

The questions, therefore, cannot be avoided even if they are coated in malice because at their heart lie the very measure of her qualification to be president. Even if she is personally and absolutely certain of her qualifications, she still needs to answer them before the public, the same public she is in fact courting for a mandate to be their president, if that is what she really aspires to be, as strongly evidenced by her body language.

And when she gets around to answering the questions about her citizenship and residency, it is hoped that she refrains from bringing up the matter of her being a foundling because that is not what the questions are about. There are valid questions surrounding her citizenship and residency. Her being a foundling has nothing to do with them. The issues against her proceed from that point later in her life when, from being a Filipino she became an American, and then back to being a Filipino.