Roa vs. Insular Collector of Customs

G.R. No. 7011
Tranquilino Roa, born in the Philippines to a Chinese father and Filipino mother, was deemed a Philippine citizen by birth and right to elect citizenship upon majority, overturning deportation orders.
citizenship birthright nationality

Case Summary (G.R. No. 7011)

Factual Background

The appellant was born in Luculan, Mindanao, Philippine Islands, on July 6, 1889, to Basilio Roa Uy Tiong Co, a native of China, and Basilia Rodriguez, a native of the Philippine Islands. His parents were legally married and permanently domiciled in the Philippine Islands at his birth. The father left for China about 1895 and died there about 1900. In May 1901 the mother sent the appellant to China to study, with the intention that he return. The appellant remained abroad until his arrival at the port of Cebu from Amoy on the steamship Kaifong on October 1, 1910, a few days short of twenty-one years and three months, and sought admission to the Philippine Islands.

Administrative Findings

A board of special inquiry at Cebu found that the appellant was a Chinese person and a subject of the Emperor of China and therefore not entitled to land. On appeal the Insular Collector of Customs affirmed that finding in a February 17, 1911 decision, relying on the principle that legitimate children take the nationality of their father and citing the Chinese Exclusion Acts as barring the entry of persons of Chinese descent except under legislatively prescribed conditions. The Collector’s Circular No. 288 (July 19, 1909) considered the decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (169 U.S. 649) but concluded that the Spanish Civil Code rule of children taking parental nationality remained controlling in the Islands for children of Chinese subjects.

Procedural History

The Court of First Instance of Cebu, in habeas corpus proceedings, recommitted the appellant to the custody of the Collector of Customs and declared the Collector’s right to effect deportation. The appellant appealed to the Supreme Court, assigning error that the lower court erred in holding he was not entitled to enter upon his claim of election between jus sanguinis and jus soli, and that the board of special inquiry abused its discretion in disregarding his declaration of election to be a citizen of the Philippine Islands.

Issues Presented

The principal legal question was whether a child born in the Philippine Islands in 1889 of a Chinese father and a Philippine mother, both domiciled in the Islands and not in diplomatic service, acquired at birth the citizenship of the Philippine Islands and, if not conclusively so, whether upon attaining majority he could elect to be a citizen of his birthplace under the applicable law.

Parties' Contentions

The appellant contended that he was a native inhabitant entitled, upon majority, to elect the nationality of his birth and to enter the Islands as a citizen. The Collector and the board maintained that under the Spanish Civil Code children took the nationality of their father while under parental authority and that the appellant therefore remained a Chinese subject; that the Treaty of Paris and section 4 of the Philippine Bill did not confer citizenship upon children of Chinese subjects; and that the Chinese Exclusion Acts barred his admission if he were a Chinese subject.

Legal Principles Considered

The Court examined three bodies of law: (1) the Spanish Civil Code provisions then in force respecting nationality (Arts. 17–19, 22), which recognized both jus soli and jus sanguinis but provided that children while under parental authority had the nationality of their parents and permitted election upon majority; (2) the doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which affirmed the common-law principle of citizenship by birth within the territory (jus soli) and declared that children born in the United States of domiciled aliens are citizens except in limited classes; and (3) the treaty and congressional acts governing the status of inhabitants of ceded territory, principally the Treaty of Paris and section 4 of the Act of July 1, 1902 (the Philippine Bill), which empowered Congress to determine civil rights and political status and declared that certain classes of inhabitants should be deemed citizens of the Philippine Islands.

Analysis of Spanish Law and Effect of Cession

The Court noted that Arts. 17–19 of the Spanish Civil Code established Spanish nationality by place of birth and by parentage and allowed election procedures for children born of foreign parents, but that those provisions were political in character and thus, upon cession of the Islands to the United States, those political laws pertaining to the prerogatives of the Crown of Spain ceased to have effect insofar as they rested upon Spanish sovereignty. The Court observed that municipal laws not in conflict with the new sovereign might remain in force, but the political rules governing allegiance and nationality necessarily changed with transfer of sovereignty.

Analysis of United States Doctrine and Wong Kim Ark

The Court reviewed United States v. Wong Kim Ark and related authorities to explicate that, under United States doctrine, citizenship by place of birth predominates and that children born within the territory of the United States of domiciled resident aliens are citizens, subject only to narrow exceptions. The Court further examined the doctrine of expatriation as recognized by Congress and the federal courts, explaining that citizenship once acquired by birth continues until renounced by voluntary acts or circumstances sufficient to constitute expatriation.

Application to the Appellant’s Circumstances

The Court applied the foregoing principles to the appellant’s situation. It emphasized that a minor cannot change domicile by his own act and that the domicile of children follows that of the parent. After the death of the father in about 1900, the widowed mother, a native of the Islands who before marriage had been a Spanish subject, ipso facto reacquired the nationality of her native country while residing in the Philippine Islands. The mothe

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