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SANDIGANBAYAN Justice Gregory Ong continued his
pursuit to clear up his citizenship by filing a case before the
Pasig Regional Trial Court to prove that he is a natural-born
Filipino.
The Supreme Court en banc had
unanimously rejected Ong’s appointment as the 15th member of the
court. Last week Ong withdrew his nomination to the Supreme Court.
In a 22-page Petition for
Correction of Entry submitted by Ong on July 9 a copy of which was
obtained by The Manila Times recently, he asked the Pasig court to
order the Civil Registrar of San Juan to correct the entry in his
birth certificate that noted his citizenship as Chinese.
He said his natural-born status
was premised on the Filipino citizenship of his mother, Dy Guiok
Santos.
Dy Guiok Santos was a Filipino
citizen at the time of her marriage, making Ong a natural-born
citizen “by operation of the fundamental law of the land,” he
said.
Under the 1987 Constitution, Ong
argued, he is not only a Filipino citizen, but “is deemed a
natural-born Filipino citizen.”
Ong included the landing
certification of his ancestors and the baptismal certificate of his
ancestor to counter allegations that he is not natural born.
He said he could prove he is a
Filipino citizen because he became a lawyer, prosecutor, judge and
justice of the Sandiganbayan without any his nationality being
questioned.
Since there are questions as to
his qualifications that he is not a natural-born Filipino citizen.
Ombudsman Special Prosecutor
Dennis Villa-Ignacio questioned before the Supreme Court Ong’s
continued tenure at the Sandiganbayan, saying the questions about
his citizenship would prejudice the cases he is handling.
Villa-Ignacio contended that a
Sandiganbayan justice must be a natural-born Filipino.
--Jomar Canlas
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