Imelda Romualdez-Marcos Vs.

COMELEC and Cirilo Roy Montejo 248 SCRA 300, September 18, 1995 Kapunan, j: Facts: Petitioner Imelda Marcos filed her certificate of candidacy for the position of Representative of the First district of Leyte indicating in the section Residence in constituency where I seek to be elected immediately preceding the election: seven months. Thereupon, private respondent Montejo filed a petition for disqualification and cancellation of certificate of candidacy of Marcos for failure to meet the constitutional requirement of residency. Petitioner then filed his amended/corrected certificate of candidacy to the head office of Comelec after being rejected by the provincial election supervisor of Leyte contending that she made an honest misinterpretation of the section and thus she would like to rectify the same by adding the word since childhood. COMELEC, however, granted private respondents petition for disqualification, hence, petitioners amended certificate of candidacy were strike off on the ground that it was filed after the lapse of deadline. In ruling thus, Comelec contends that when petitioner chose to stay in Ilocos and later on in Manila, coupled with her intention to stay there by registering as a voter there, together with her husband Ferdinand Marcos, and expressly declaring that she is a resident of that place, she is deemed to have abandoned Tacloban City, where she spent her childhood and school days, as her place of domicile. Her motion for reconsideration was denied. On a resolution, Comelec ordered that the petitioners proclamation as Representative be suspended in the event that she obtains the highest number of votes. On account of the resolutions disqualifying her from running for the congressional seat and on the Comelecs resolution suspending her proclamation , petitioner comes to the supreme court for relief. Issue: whether or not the petitioner is qualified to run in the congressional seat and be proclaimed as winner, despite the fact of her mistake of entry in her certificate of candidacy. Held: Yes. The startling confusion lies in the application of settled concepts of domicile and Residence. Well-settled is the rule that in election law, these two terms are synonymous, however, the conception of Comelec has a tendency to substitute or mistake the concept of domicile to actual residence. The petitioner merely committed an honest mistake in jotting down the word seven in the space provided for residency qualification requirement. The circumstances leading to her filing the questioned entry obviously resulted in the subsequent confusion which prompted petitioner to write down the period of her actual stay in tolosa, leyte instead of her period of residence in the first district, which was since childhood. In upholding the qualification of petitioner, despite her own declaration in her certificate of candidacy that she had resided in the district for only 7 months, the court ruled the following :(1) a minor follows the domicile of her parents; Tacloban became petitioners domicile of origin by operation of law when her father brought the family to Leyte; (2) domicile of origin is lost only when there is a.)actual removal or change of domicile, b.) a bona fide intention of abandoning the former residence and establishing a new one, c.)and acts which correspond with the purpose; in the absence of clear and positive proof of the concurrence of all these, the domicile of origin should be deemed to continue; (c) the wife does not automatically gain the husbands domicile because the term residence in Civil Law does not mean the same thing in Political Law; when petitioner married President Marcos in 1954, she kept her domicile of origin and merely gained a new home, not a domicilium necessarium; (d) even assuming that she gained a new domicile after her marriage and acquired the right to choose a new one only after her husband died, her acts following her return to the country clearly indicate that she chose Tacloban, her domicile of origin, as her domicile of choice.

Notes: Article VI, sec. 6. No person shall be a member of the House of Representatives unless he is a naturalborn citizen of the Philippinesand, on the day of the election, is at least 25 years of age,able to read and write , and except the party-list representative, a registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected , and a resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediatelypreceding the day of the election. Residence- implies a factual relationship if an individual to a certain place. It is the physical presence of a person in a given area, community or country. Domicile-an individuals permanent home, a place to ahich, whenever absent for business or pleasure, one intends to return, and depends on the facts and circumstances in the sense that they disclose intent. It involves twin element of the fact of residing or physical presence in a fixed place and animus manendi, or the intention of returning there permanently. ****There is a difference between domicile and residence. Residence is used to indicate a palce of abode, whether permanent or temporary; domicile denotes a fixed permanent residence to which, when absent, one has the intention of returning. A man may have a residence in one place and a domicile in another. Residence is not domicile, but domicile is residence coupled with the intention to remain for an unlimited time. A man can have but one domicile for the same purpose at any time, but he may have numerous places of residence. **** It is the fact of residence, not a statement in a certificate of candidacy which ought to be decisive in determining whether or not and 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.