Focus on foundlings and orphans

The rise to fame of Sen. Grace Poe and the stratospheric viewership ratings of primetime telenovelas on abandoned children (like “Niño,” “Nathaniel,” “Dream Dad” and “Munting Heredera”) have riveted public attention on foundlings and orphans, to the delight of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Discrimination vs orphans. These children have been discriminated against because they have no known biological parents. Consequently, they suffer from lack of lineage, parental care, family support, inheritance and succession.

Even those who have been legally adopted, cared for and unconditionally loved by foster parents—while assured of the civil rights of legitimate children—are many times restricted in terms of their political rights to citizenship and residency which are prerequisites to exercise the right to vote and to be voted to public office.

Indeed, our constitutions (whether current or past) and our statutes do not expressly grant them these political rights. For example, I had to research on the “generally-accepted principles of international law” to conclude that Senator Poe possesses natural-born citizenship. (Please see my columns on “Grace Poe’s citizenship,” Opinion, 6/14/15 and 6/21/15.)

Natural-born citizenship is a required qualification for the top officials of our country—president, vice president, senators, congressmen and justices of the Supreme Court.

UN battles discrimination. Fortunately, the United Nations—since its founding more than half a century ago—has been fighting for equal treatment of all the peoples of the world, regardless of race, color, religion, language, sex, political opinions, ethnic origin, age and accidents of birth.

As early as Dec. 10, 1948, the UN approved the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) which proclaims, “Everyone has the right to a nationality.” (Nationality is another word for citizenship.) Later, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) seconded this declaration in these ringing words,

“Every child has the right to acquire a nationality.”

To alleviate the suffering of persons devoid of citizenship, the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons mandated the “Contracting Parties… to facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of stateless persons.”

More precisely, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention), in its Article 2, addressed directly the plight of orphans: “A foundling found in the territory of a Contracting State shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be considered to have been born within that territory of parents possessing the nationality of that State.”

Thus, a foundling found in the Philippines is deemed to have Filipino parents. It follows that, under our Constitution, that foundling is presumed to be a “natural-born” citizen since its parents are Filipinos, and thus qualified to run for president or vice president.

My thesis is simple: In our democracy, our 50 million voters should choose our highest officials, not our unelected and politically unaccountable though learned and wise Supreme Court justices.

UNHCR’s work in PH. For more than 50 years, the UNHCR—currently represented in the Philippines by Bernard Kerblat—has been urging our country to accede to the 1961 Convention.

True, express accession is not necessary to recognize the citizenship of foundlings because the Philippines has already adopted, acceded and ratified the UDHR, ICCPR and CRC. Nonetheless, such accession would benefit other disadvantagedindividuals like internally-displaced persons.

In an aide-mémoire, the Philippine office of the UNHCR said that in February this year, various agencies convened to develop a national action plan to end statelessness, with accession to the 1961 Convention as a goal by the end of 2016.

The Philippines is a country that has about10 million citizens working abroad. Thus, it has a keen interest in protecting non-Filipinos living in its shores, in reciprocity for its hope that its nationals living and working abroad would in equal measure be treated fairly and justly.

It is therefore fitting and proper that it cooperates, as it actually does, with the UNHCR in accommodating and hosting, within all possible means, persons of concern to the UNHCR, including:

• Internally-displaced individuals—those who have been forced to flee their homes as a result of or to avoid the effects of armed conflicts, or of the violations of their human rights, or of natural or man-made disasters; included in this category are the Rohingyas, “the new boat people” who fled Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh.
• Refugees—those who left or are unable to return to their country on well-grounded fears of persecution for reasons of race, religion or political belief; and
• Stateless persons—those who are not considered nationals of any state; stateless persons suffer travel discrimination because they have no passports.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has issued Circular No. 58 outlining the procedure for accepting these maltreated persons into the Philippines. Specifically, she announced the willingness of our country to host the Rohingyas.

Senator Poe has made it her mission to take care of abandoned children. Thus, she filed Senate Bill No. 2892 to strengthen the system for the birth registration of children needing special protection, including foundlings like her.

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