JALOSJOS vs COMELEC

ROMMEL APOLINARIO JALOSJOS, petitioner

THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and DAN ERASMO, SR., respondents

G.R. No. 191970. April 24, 2012. EN BANC.

FACTS:

Jalosjos was born in Quezon City. He migrated to Australia when he was eight and there acquired Australian citizenship. On November 22, 2008, at age 35, he decided to return to the Philippines and lived with his brother in Barangay Veteran's Village, Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay. He took an oath of allegiance and renounced his Australian citizenship. From the time of his return, Jalosjos acquired a residential property in the same village where he lived and a fishpond in San Isidro, Naga, Zamboanga Sibugay. 

On November 28, 2009 Jalosjos filed his COC for Governor of Zamboanga Sibugay Province for the May 10, 2010 elections. Dan Erasmo, Sr. promptly filed a petition to cancel Jalosjos' COC on the ground that the latter made material misrepresentation since he failed to comply with (1) the requirements of R.A. 9225 and (2) the one-year residency requirement of the Local Government Code.

After hearing, the Second Division of the COMELEC ruled that, while Jalosjos had regained Philippine citizenship by complying with the requirements of R.A. 9225, he failed to prove the residency requirement for a gubernatorial candidate. On motion for reconsideration, the COMELEC En Banc affirmed the Second Division's decision, ruling that Jalosjos had been a mere guest or transient visitor in his brother's house and, for this reason, he cannot claim Ipil as his domicile. 

ISSUE:

WON COMELEC acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in ruling that Jalosjos failed to present ample proof of a bona fide intention to establish his domicile in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay.

RULING:

YES.

The LGC requires a candidate seeking the position of provincial governor to be a resident of the province for at least one year before the election. For purposes of the election laws, the requirement of residence is synonymous with domicile,  meaning that a person must not only intend to reside in a particular place but must also have personal presence in such place coupled with conduct indicative of such intention. There is no hard and fast rule to determine a candidate's compliance with residency requirement since the question of residence is a question of intention. Still, jurisprudence has laid down the following guidelines: (a) every person has a domicile or residence somewhere; (b) where once established, that domicile remains until he acquires a new one; and (c) a person can have but one domicile at a time.

It is inevitable under these guidelines and the precedents applying them that Jalosjos has met the residency requirement for provincial governor of Zamboanga Sibugay. To hold that Jalosjos has not establish a new domicile in Zamboanga Sibugay despite the loss of his domicile of origin (Quezon City) and his domicile of choice and by operation of law (Australia) would violate the settled maxim that a man must have a domicile or residence somewhere. The COMELEC concluded that Jalosjos has not come to settle his domicile in Ipil since he has merely been staying at his brother's house. But this circumstance alone cannot support such conclusion. Indeed, the Court has repeatedly held that a candidate is not required to have a house in a community to establish his residence or domicile in a particular place. It is sufficient that he should live there even if it be in a rented house or in the house of a friend or relative.  To insist that the candidate own the house where he lives would make property a qualification for public office. What matters is that Jalosjos has proved two things: actual physical presence in Ipil and an intention of making it his domicile.