ROMUALDEZ-MARCOS v.

COMELEC
G.R. No. 119976 September 18, 1995

FACTS:
• Petitioner Imelda Romualdez-Marcos filed her Certificate of Candidacy (COC) for the position of Representative of the First
District of Leyte with the Provincial Election Supervisor on March 8, 1995, providing that her time as resident there is only
seven months.
• On March 23, 1995, private respondent Cirilo Roy Montejo, the incumbent Representative of the First District of Leyte and a
candidate for the same position, filed a “Petition for Cancellation and Disqualification” with the Commission on Elections
(COMELEC) alleging that Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos did not meet the constitutional requirement for residency. In his
petition, private respondent contended that Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos lacked the Constitution’s one year residency
requirement for candidates to the House of Representatives on the evidence of declarations made by her in Voter
Registration and in her COC.
• Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos filed the Amended/Corrected COC with the COMELEC Head Office and at the same time
answered the petition against her, averring that the entry of the word “seven” in her original COC was the result of an “honest
misinterpretation” which she sought to rectify by adding the words “since childhood” in her Amended/Corrected COC and that
“she has always maintained Tacloban City as her domicile or residence.” Basically, Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos thought that
what was asked in the COC was her “actual and physical” presence in Tolosa, Leyte and not her residence of origin or
domicile in the First Legislative District, to which she could have responded “since childhood.” She tried to discredit private
respondent’s theory of disqualification by alleging that she has been a resident of the First Legislative District of Leyte since
childhood, although she only became a resident of the Municipality of Tolosa for seven months. She asserted that she has
always been a resident of Tacloban City, a component of the First District, before coming to the Municipality of Tolosa. She
stated that her domicile is in Tacloban City, a component of the First District, to which she always intended to return whenever
absent and which she has never abandoned.
• The 2nd Division of COMELEC disqualified Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos to run for the position of Member of the House of
Representatives for the First Legislative District of Leyte, struck off her Corrected/Amended COC, and cancelled her original
COC. The COMELEC en banc denied her Motion for Reconsideration.
• Later on, the COMELEC issued a Resolution allowing Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos’ proclamation should the results of the
canvass show that she obtained the highest number of votes in the congressional elections in the said district. However, the
COMELEC issued another Resolution directing the proclamation of Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos be suspended in the event
that she obtains the higher number of votes.
• In a Supplemental Petition, Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos averred that she was the winner of the elections for the
congressional seat.
• On account of the Resolutions disqualifying Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos from running for the congressional seat of the First
District of Leyte and the COMELEC’s Resolution suspending her proclamation, Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos came to the
Supreme Court for relief.

ISSUE:
Was Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos a resident, for election purposes, of the First District of Leyte for a period of one year at the
time of the elections?

RULING:

Article 50 of the Civil Code decrees that “[f]or the exercise of civil rights and the fulfillment of civil obligations, the
domicile of natural persons is their place of habitual residence.” In Ong vs. Republic the court took the concept of
domicile to mean an individual’s “permanent home,” “a place to which, whenever absent for business or for pleasure,
one intends to return, and depends on facts and circumstances in the sense that they disclose intent.” Based on the
foregoing, domicile includes the twin elements of “the fact of residing or physical presence in a fixed place” and
animus manendi, or the intention of returning there permanently.

Regarding Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos’ RESIDENCE:

Residence, in its ordinary conception, implies the factual relationship of an individual to a certain place. It is the physical
presence of a person in a given area, community or country. The essential distinction between residence and domicile in law is
that residence involves the intent to leave when the purpose for which the resident has taken up his abode ends. One may seek
a place for purposes such as pleasure, business, or health. If a person’s intent be to remain, it becomes his domicile; if his intent
is to leave as soon as his purpose is established it is residence. It is thus, quite perfectly normal for an individual to have
different residences in various places. However, a person can only have a single domicile, unless, for various reasons, he
successfully abandons his domicile in favour of another domicile of choice.
It is the fact of residence, not a statement in a certificate of candidacy which ought to be decisive in determining whether or not
an individual has satisfied the constitution’s residency qualification requirement. The said statement becomes material only
when there is or appears to be a deliberate attempt to mislead, misinform, or hide a fact which would otherwise render a
candidate ineligible. It would be plainly ridiculous for a candidate to deliberately and knowingly make a statement in a certificate
of candidacy which would lead to his or her disqualification. It stands to reason therefore, that Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos
merely committed an honest mistake in jotting down the word “seven” in the space provided for the residency qualification
requirement. The circumstances leading to her filing the questioned entry obviously resulted in the subsequent confusion which
prompted her to write down the period of her actual stay in Tolosa, Leyte (actual residence) instead of her period of residence
in the First District (Tacloban, Leyte (her domicile), which was “since childhood” in the space provided. Having been forced by
private respondent to register in her place of actual residence in Leyte instead of petitioner’s claimed domicile, it appears that
Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos had jotted down her period of stay in her actual residence in a space which required her
period of stay in her legal residence or domicile. This honest mistake should not, however, be allowed to negate the fact of
residence in the First District if such fact were established by means more convincing than a mere entry on a piece of paper.

Regarding Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos’ DOMICILE:

Petitioner held various residences for different purposes during the past four decades. None of these purposes unequivocally
point to an intention to abandon her domicile of origin in Tacloban, Leyte. Moreover, while petitioner was born in Manila, as a
minor she naturally followed the domicile of her parents. She grew up in Tacloban, reached her adulthood there and
eventually established residence in different parts of the country for various reasons. Even during her husband’s presidency, at
the height of the Marcos Regime’s powers, petitioner kept her close ties to her domicile of origin.

Private respondent in his Comment, contends that Tacloban was not petitioner’s domicile of origin because she did not live there
until she was eight years old. He avers that after leaving the place in 1952, she “abandoned her residency (sic) therein for many
years and . . . (could not) re-establish her domicile in said place by merely expressing her intention to live there again.” The
Court held:

First, a minor follows the domicile of his parents. As domicile, once acquired is retained until a new one is gained, it follows
that in spite of the fact of petitioner’s being born in Manila, Tacloban, Leyte was her domicile of origin by operation of law.
This domicile was not established only when she reached the age of eight years old, when her father brought his family back to
Leyte contrary to private respondent’s averments. Second, domicile of origin is not easily lost. To successfully effect a change
of domicile, one must demonstrate: 1. An actual removal or an actual change of domicile; 2. A bona fide intention of
abandoning the former place of residence and establishing a new one; and 3. Acts which correspond with the purpose.
In the absence of clear and positive proof based on these criteria, the residence of origin should be deemed to continue. Only
with evidence showing concurrence of all three requirements can the presumption of continuity or residence be rebutted, for a
change of residence requires an actual and deliberate abandonment, and one cannot have two legal residences at the same
time.

In this connection, it cannot be correctly argued that petitioner lost her domicile of origin by operation of law as a result of her
marriage to the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1952. For there is a clearly established distinction between the Civil
Code concepts of “domicile” and “residence.” The presumption that the wife automatically gains the husband’s domicile by
operation of law upon marriage cannot be inferred from the use of the term “residence” in Article 110 of the Civil Code because
the Civil Code is one area where the two concepts are well delineated. Article 110 of the Civil Code provides: “The husband
shall fix the residence of the family. But the court may exempt the wife from living with the husband if he should live
abroad unless in the service of the Republic. The article obviously cannot be understood to refer to domicile which is a fixed,
fairly-permanent concept when it plainly connotes the possibility of transferring from one place to another not only once, but as
often as the husband may deem fit to move his family, a circumstance more consistent with the concept of actual residence. It is
illogical to conclude that Art. 110 refers to “domicile” and not to “residence” because we shall be faced with a situation
where the wife is left in the domicile while the husband, for professional or other reasons, stays in one of their
(various) residences. When Petitioner was married to then Congressman Marcos, in 1954, petitioner was obliged by virtue of
Article 110 of the Civil Code to follow her husband’s actual place of residence fixed by him. The problem here is that at that time,
Mr. Marcos had several places of residence, among which were San Juan, Rizal and Batac, Ilocos Norte. There is no showing
which of these places Mr. Marcos did fix, as his family’s residence. But assuming that Mr. Marcos had fixed any of these places
as the conjugal residence, what petitioner gained upon marriage was actual residence. She did not lose her domicile of
origin. Also, the Court held that it would be highly illogical to assume that she cannot regain her original domicile upon the death
of her husband absent a positive act of selecting a new one where situations exist within the subsistence of the marriage itself
where the wife gains a domicile different from her husband.

The Supreme Court SET ASIDE COMELEC’s RESOLUTIONS and directed it to order the Provincial Board of Canvassers to
proclaim Petitioner Romualdez-Marcos as the duly elected Representative of the First District of Leyte.