GR L 18005; (November, 1963) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-18005 November 29, 1963
LU BENG GA, petitioner-appellee, vs. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, oppositor-appellant.
FACTS
Lu Beng Ga, a Chinese citizen born in Amoy, China, filed a petition for naturalization on August 6, 1958. He arrived in the Philippines in 1927 and had resided continuously in the country, working as a merchant and manager of a store in Davao City. He is married to Salud Te, also a Chinese citizen, and they have five children. The Solicitor General opposed the petition, raising several grounds including the petitioner’s failure to file a declaration of intention, the alleged incompetence of a character witness, and the claim that he was not conducting himself in a proper and irreproachable manner.
The Solicitor General specifically argued that the petitioner failed to comply with the requirement of enrolling all his school-age children in a recognized public or private school, which would exempt him from filing a declaration of intention. At the time of filing the petition in 1958, his third child, Chin Bon, born in 1952, was not yet seven years old and thus not of compulsory school age. However, by the time of the hearing in June 1959, this child had reached school age.
ISSUE
The principal issue is whether Lu Beng Ga is entitled to naturalization as a Filipino citizen.
RULING
The Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision granting naturalization and dismissed the petition. The Court found it unnecessary to resolve all the procedural and substantive grounds raised by the Solicitor General, including the school enrollment issue. The Court held that even assuming the petitioner could be exempt from filing a declaration of intention, his petition must still be denied on a more fundamental ground: his failure to comply with the Alien Registration Act.
The record established that the petitioner failed to register his minor children as required by Section 10 of the Alien Registration Act ( Republic Act No. 562 ). This legal duty falls upon the parent or legal guardian of an alien under fourteen years of age. The Court, citing its precedents in Chung Hong vs. Republic and Benjamin vs. Republic, ruled that such failure to register constitutes an offense and demonstrates a lack of proper and irreproachable conduct required of an applicant for naturalization. This violation is a sufficient and independent ground for the denial of the petition. Consequently, the Court dismissed the petition without needing to adjudicate the other assigned errors.