G.R. No. L-21179




Republic of the Philippines SUPREME COURT Manila EN BANC G.R. No. L-21179 January 22, 1966 IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION TO BE ADMITTED A CITIZEN OF THE PHILIPPINES. MARIANO NG also known as MARIANO UY, petitioner-appellee, vs. REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, oppositor-appellant. Office of the Solicitor General for the oppositor-appellant. J.A. Uy for the petitioner-appellee. BENGZON, J.P., J.: The Republic has appealed from a decision rendered by the Court of First Instance of Manila on January 23, 1963 granting the petition for naturalization in question. Petitioner Mariano Ng, alias Mariano Uy, a citizen of the Republic of China, was born in Manila on September 8, 1932. He is married to Sy Gui Tuna. At the time the amended petition for naturalization was filed, on November 22, 1961, he had two children — Perry S. Ng, born on February 12, 1960 and Lisa Sy Ng Uy, born on August 14, 1961. At said time also, he was receiving a salary of Five Hundred (P500.00) Pesos a month, with bonus at the end of the year, as sales manager in the Aluminum Basin Factory, owned by his brother. For the year 1961 petitioner earned a total of P6,680.00, consisting of salary amounting to P6,000.00 and bonus of P680.00 (Exh. Q-1; Tsn, p. 92). During the trial petitioner's character witnesses, Juvenal Catajoy and Ceferino Zodiacal, testified inter alia that they came to know petitioner for the first time in July, 1951 (Tsn., p. 6) and in 1948 (Tsn., p. 43), respectively. They also stated in court that since the time they first came to know him, they have known petitioner to be a person of good repute and morally irreproachable (Tsn., pp. 11-12, 47-48). As aforestated, the court a quo granted the application for naturalization. Appellant herein contends that said court erred in not finding that petitioner's witnesses could not vouch for his good and morally irreproachable character as required by the Naturalization Law. And secondly, that it erred in not finding that petitioner has no lucrative income. Petitioner's own evidence, as pointed out, shows that as of the time he applied for naturalization,¹ he was receiving from his trade, profession or occupation an income of P500.00 a month or P6,000.00 a year. For purposes of determining whether or not applicant has a lucrative occupation, bonuses cannot be taken into consideration, since they are by nature indefinite and unsteady (Tse vs. Republic, L-19642, November 9, 1964). Accordingly, petitioner's bonus at the end of the year, amounting to P680.00 in the year 1961 should be excluded. It follows that petitioner, who is married and has two minor children to support, lacked the aforesaid qualification. For in Tan vs. Republic, L-16013, March 30, 1963, a married applicant who had but one child and who was earning P6,300.00 per annum, was held without a lucrative trade, profession or occupation. And even assuming petitioner's bonus may be considered, his total income would only be P6,680.00. Since he has two children to support, the same would still not be lucrative, in the light of the above-mentioned ruling. At least P1,000.00 yearly is the amount petitioner would have to spend to support his second child, since this is the sum or additional exemption from income tax allowed him for said child (Republic Act 2343, effective June 20, 1959).1äwphï1.ñët Anent the two witnesses presented to establish petitioner's morally irreproachable conduct, they came to know him only in 1948 and 1951. Petitioner having resided in the Philippines since his birth in 1932, said witnesses were not in a position to vouch for petitioner's irreproachable conduct to the extent required by law. In Chua Pun vs. Republic, L-16825, December 22, 1961, this Court ruled: ... since the law requires proper and irreproachable conduct during the entire period of his residence in the Philippines (Section 2, par. 3, Com. Act 473) the evidence falls far short when only two witnesses are presented who came to know applicant only in 1945 and 1946 respectively (see Dy Tian vs. Republic, L-10200, April 18, 1958), and who were, therefore, in no position to testify as to applicant's conduct from the time he arrived in the Philippines on October 2, 1924. And in Dy Tian vs. Republic, 55 O.G. 420, 422, this Court said: As De la Rosa, one of the witnesses presented, had come to know personally the petitioner only in the year 1940, he could not and did not testify that the petitioner conducted himself in a proper and irreproachable manner during his entire stay in the Philippines, which dates from his birth. (Emphasis supplied.) From the time, therefore, that petitioner herein became responsible for his acts, when he reached the age of discernment in 1941, up to 1948, no witness, except applicant himself (Tsn., p. 83), testified as to his proper and irreproachable conduct. It takes much more than petitioner's assertion to establish this vital fact (Chua Pun vs. Republic, supra). Wherefore, the decision appealed from is hereby reversed. Petition for naturalization denied, with costs against appellee. So ordered. Bengzon, C.J., Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Regala and Zaldivar, JJ., concur. Dizon and Makalintal, JJ., took no part. Footnotes ¹Financial capacity of petitioner is determined as of time of filing petition for naturalization. (Ong Tai vs. Republic, L-19418, December 23, 1964.) The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation