4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Philippines. The act of taking an oath of allegiance is an implicit renunciation of a naturalized citizen’s foreign citizenship. R.A. No. 9225, or the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003, was enacted years after the promulgation of Manzano and Valles. The oath found in Section 3 of R.A. No. 9225 reads as follows: I __________ , solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines and obey the laws and legal orders promulgated by the duly constituted authorities of the Philippines; and I hereby declare that I recognize and accept the supreme authority of the Philippines and will maintain true faith and allegiance thereto; and that I impose this obligation upon myself voluntarily without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. In Sections 2 and 3 of R.A. No. 9225, the framers were not concerned with dual citizenship per se, but with the status of naturalized citizens who maintain their allegiance to their countries of origin even after their naturalization. Section 5(2) of R.A. No. 9225 states that naturalized citizens who reacquire Filipino citizenship and desire to run for elective public office in the Philippines shall “meet the qualifications for holding such public office as required by the Constitution and existing laws and, at the time of filing the certificate of candidacy, make a personal and sworn renunciation of any and all foreign citizenship before any public officer authorized to administer an oath” aside from the oath of allegiance prescribed in Section 3 of R.A. No. 9225. The twin requirements of swearing to an Oath of Allegiance and executing a Renunciation of Foreign Citizenship served as the bases for our recent rulings in Jacot v. Dal and COMELEC, Velasco v. COMELEC, and Japzon v. COMELEC, all of which involve natural-born Filipinos who later became naturalized citizens of another country and thereafter ran for elective office in the Philippines. In the present case, Tambunting, a naturalborn Filipino, did not subsequently become a naturalized citizen of another country. Hence, the twin requirements in R.A. No. 9225 do not apply to him. [5] Hence, Arnado’s failure to comply with the twin requirements of R.A. No. 9225 is clearly a failure to qualify as a candidate for Philippine elective public office. He is still deemed, under Philippine law, holding allegiance to a foreign country, which disqualifies him from running for an elective public office. Such failure to comply with the twin requirements of R.A. No. 9225 is included among the grounds for disqualification in Section 68 of the Omnibus Election Code: “Disqualifications. – x x x. Any person who is a permanent resident of or an immigrant to a foreign country shall not be qualified to run for any elective office under this Code, unless said person has waived his status as a permanent resident or immigrant of a foreign country in accordance with the residence requirement provided for in election laws.” On the Selection of the Lawful Mayor of Kauswagan, Lanao del Sur elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55820 31/49