EDITORIAL – Keeping the presidency sacrosanct

Political passions always tend to obscure issues instead of enlighten them. A classic example is the citizenship issue surrounding Senator Grace Poe and how it affects her qualification to run for president. At the heart of the issue is a constitutional provision that says only natural born citizens may run for president. Had not the candidacy of Poe been on the line on account of that provision, nobody would have spent a minute debating its intent and its ramifications.

But because the issue involves Poe, who is way up there in the surveys in an election that is shaping up to be one of the most hotly contested in years, the matter of her being a foundling, and thus not a natural born citizen and is constitutionally disqualified from running for president, has naturally become a hot topic indeed. Had the issue involved, say, a nuisance candidate, why the story probably would not even make the news.

The problem with having a frontrunner get caught in a very tricky predicament is that there is no limit to what the mind can imagine in her defense. Since the constitutional provision is difficult to argue against because of its remarkable clarity, the supporters of Poe -- and even Poe herself -- have resorted to playing on the emotions of people in an attempt to win with sympathy what is insurmountable legally.

And so, to tug at the heartstrings of people in order to win with sympathy what cannot be won over by legal argument, the plaintive appeal of the camp of Poe seems to be that foundlings in this country are being deprived of their rights as citizens. But that is, of course, a very big lie because Poe is not being deprived of her citizenship.

The truth of the matter is, Poe has even been accorded Filipino citizenship twice -- first when, as a foundling, she was accorded automatic naturalization, and second when, after renouncing her Filipino citizenship to become an American, she was granted her Filipino citizenship again when she decided she wanted to become a Filipino once more. Those are easily verifiable facts that cannot be glossed over by the most persuasive exercise of sentiment.

Had Poe not been involved in any of this, it probably would not be difficult for anybody to understand why a foundling cannot be considered a natural born  citizen. Everybody would agree that there is no way the citizenship of a foundling can be determined if nobody knows who the parents are. Even if a foundling was found in the Philippines and develops distinctly Filipino features later, it doesn't follow the parents are Filipino if they remain unknown.

This is the logic behind the constitutional provision, and it is to avoid an awkward situation at the very least, and a legal predicament or constitutional crisis at worst, if a president who, at the time of his or her birth had parents who were unknown, but would later be determined to have parents who were not Filipino. It is never about foundlings. That is just a circumstance in the larger picture, which is about keeping the presidency, the leadership of the country, sacrosanct.