Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-4353 April 20, 1953
TAN KAY KO alias YAP KAY KO, petitioner-appellee,
vs.
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, oppositor-appellant.
Office of the Assistant Solicitor General Guillermo E. Torres and Solicitor Florencio Villamor for appellant.
Vicente L. Peralta for appellee.
JUGO, J.:
On March 20, 1950, Tan Kay Ko alias Yap Kay Ko, filed a petition in the Court of First Instance of Sorsogon for Philippine citizenship. On March 22, 1950, the clerk of court of Sorsogon issued notice of the petition, setting the case for hearing on July 17, 1950. The notice was published in the newspaper Nueva Era of general circulation of the province, in its issues of March 17, April 8 and 10, 1950, and in the March, April and May, 1950, issues of the Official Gazette. On July 17, 1950, the date of the hearing, the Provincial Fiscal of Sorsogon appeared in behalf of the office of the Solicitor General and objected to the holding of the trial on the ground that the period of six months prescribed by Republic Act No. 530 from the date of the last publication had not yet expired. The court overruled the objection and postponed the hearing of the case to July 29, 1950, when it was actually held. The court below rendered decision on September 8, 1950, granting the application for naturalization of the petitioner. From this decision the Solicitor General appealed.
The petitioner has all the qualifications to become a Filipino citizen with the exception of one; to wit, he has not proven that his son Tan Giok, who was eight years old, was enrolled in one of the schools prescribed by the Naturalization Law.
The other issue raised in this appeal is whether the requisites of the Naturalization Law, as amended, with regard to the time of the publication of the notice of trial had been complied with. Section 9 of the Naturalization Law, before the amendment, provided that the "hearing shall not be held within ninety days from the date of the last publication of the notice."
The ninety-day period has been increased to six months by Republic Act No. 530, which took effect on June 16, 1950, the pertinent part of which reads as follows:
SEC. 1. The provisions of existing laws notwithstanding, no petition for Philippine citizenship shall be heard by the courts until after six months from the publication of the application required by law, . . . .
x x x x x x x x x
This Act shall take effect upon its approval, and shall apply to cases pending in court and to those where the applicant has not yet taken the oath of citizenship: Provided, however, That in pending cases where the requisite of publication under the old law had already been complied with, the publication herein required shall not apply.
Approved, June 16, 1950.
The present case began to be pending in court on March 20, 1950 when the petition was filed, and it was still pending on June 16, 1950 when the amendatory Republic Act No. 530 took effect. Under the old law, before the amendment, the trial should have been held ninety days after the date of the last publication. The last publication in the Official Gazette was in May, 1950, the date originally set for trial. The last publication in the newspaper Nueva Era was on April 10, 1950, more than ninety days before July 17, 1950. However, it is not necessary to decide whether the period of ninety days should be counted from the last publication in the Official Gazette, or from the last publication in the Nueva Era for the reason that the petition has to be denied on another ground which is, that the petitioner had not enrolled his minor child, above-mentioned, in any school prescribed by section 2 of the Naturalization Law.
In view of the foregoing, the decision appealed from is reversed and the application of the appellee denied. Without costs. So ordered.
Paras, C.J., Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Tuason, Montemayor, Reyes, Bautista Angelo and Labrador, JJ., concur.
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