4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly contrary to national interest should be dealt with by law. However, he said that the dual allegiance problem is not addressed in the bill. He then cited the Declaration of Policy in the bill which states that "It is hereby declared the policy of the State that all citizens who become citizens of another country shall be deemed not to have lost their Philippine citizenship under the conditions of this Act." He stressed that what the bill does is recognize Philippine citizenship but says nothing about the other citizenship. Rep. Locsin further pointed out that the problem of dual allegiance is created wherein a natural-born citizen of the Philippines takes an oath of allegiance to another country and in that oath says that he abjures and absolutely renounces all allegiance to his country of origin and swears allegiance to that foreign country. The original Bill had left it at this stage, he explained. In the present measure, he clarified, a person is required to take an oath and the last he utters is one of allegiance to the country. He then said that the problem of dual allegiance is no longer the problem of the Philippines but of the other foreign country. (Emphasis supplied) [33] See Discussion of Senators Enrile and Pimentel on Sec. 40(d) of the Local Government Code, reproduced in Cordora v. COMELEC, G.R. No. 176947, 19 February 2009, 580 SCRA 12. By electing Philippine citizenship, such candidates at the same time forswear allegiance to the other country of which they are also citizens and thereby terminate their status as dual citizens. It may be that, from the point of view of the foreign state and of its laws, such an individual has not effectively renounced his foreign citizenship. That is of no moment as the following discussion on §40(d) between Senators Enrile and Pimentel clearly shows: SENATOR ENRILE: Mr. President, I would like to ask clarification of line 41, page 17: "Any person with dual citizenship " is disqualified to run for any elective local position. Under the present Constitution, Mr. President, someone whose mother is a citizen of the Philippines but his father is a foreigner is a naturalborn citizen of the Republic. There is no requirement that such a naturalborn citizen, upon reaching the age of majority, must elect or give up Philippine citizenship. On the assumption that this person would carry two passports, one belonging to the country of his or her father and one belonging to the Republic of the Philippines, may such a situation disqualify the person to run for a local government position? SENATOR PIMENTEL: To my mind, Mr. President, it only means that at the moment when he would elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55820 24/49