Case Digest: Article 48 of the Civil Code of the Philippines

YUNG UAN CHU, petitioner-appellee,

vs.

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, oppositor-appellant.

G.R. No. L-34973 April 14, 1988

PARAS, J.:

FACTS: On December 7, 1971, the government appealed to the decision of the Court of First Instance of South Cotabato, General Santos City, for granting the petition for naturalization of Yung Uan Chu alias Lina Yung Yu Hui Tin, a Chinese, married to a Filipino, and with 6 kids.

After trail, a decision was rendered finding the petitioner Yung Uan Chu baptized as Lina Yung, known in school in her registered name as Lina Uan Chu and now as Mrs. Lina Y. Cupang, as possessed of all the qualifications and none of the disqualifications of a Filipino citizen and therefore authorized to take her oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines and to register the same in the proper civil registrar.

ISSUE: Whether a judicial declaration that a person is a Filipino citizen can be made in a petition for naturalization.

HELD: A judicial declaration that the person is a Filipino citizen cannot be made in a petition or naturalization and that, in this jurisdiction, there can be no independent action for the judicial declaration of citizenship of an individual. Courts of justice exist for settlement of justiciable controversies, which imply a given right, legally demandable and enforceable, an act or omission violative of said right, and a remedy, granted or sanctioned by law, for said breach of right.

In DOJ Opinion No. 38, series of 1958, to the effect that “The alien woman must file a petition for the cancellation of her alien certificate of registration, alleging, among other things that she is married to a Filipino citizen and that she is not disqualified from acquiring her husband’s citizenship pursuant to Section 4 of Commonwealth Act No. 473, as amended. Upon the filing of said petition, this should be accompanied or supported by the joint affidavit of the petitioner and her husband to the effect and thus secure recognition of her status as a Filipino citizen. Judicial recourse would be available to the petitioner in a case of adverse action by the Immigration Commissioner.