Case Digest: Marcos v. COMELEC

IMELDA ROMUALDEZ-MARCOS, plaintiff vs. COMMISSION OF ELECTIONS, defendant
248 SCRA 300

Facts:

March 23,1995, Cirilo Roy Montejo, filed a petition for cancellation and disqualification with the COMELEC alleging that Imelda-Romualdez Marcos did not meet the constitutional requirement for residency. March 29, 1995, Marcos filed a corrected certificate of candidacy changing the entry “seven” months to “since childhood”. The COMELEC en banc denied petitioner’s motion for reconsideration declaring her not qualified to run for the position of the member of the House of Representatives for the First District of Leyte. In a supplemental petition, Marcos averred that she was the overwhelming winner of the election.

Issue:

Whether or not petitioner was a resident, for election purposes, of the First District of Leyte for a period of one year at the time of the May 9, 1995 elections.

Held:

Residence is synonymous with domicile which reveals a tendency or mistake the concept of domicile for actual residence, a conception not intended for the purpose of determining a candidate’s qualifications for the election to the House of Representatives as required by the 1987 Constitution. An individual does not lose his domicile even if he has lived and maintained residences in different places. In the case at bench, the evidence adduced by Motejo lacks the degree of persuasiveness as required to convince the court that an abandonment of domicile of origin in favor of a domicile of choice indeed incurred. It cannot be correctly argued that Marcos lost her domicile of origin by operation of law as a result of her marriage to the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Having determined that Marcos posses the necessary residence qualifications to run for a seat in the House of Representatives in the First District of Leyte, the COMELEC’s questioned resolutions dated April 24, May 7, May11, and May 25 are set aside. Provincial Board of Canvassers is directed to proclaim Marcos as the duly elected Representative of the First District of Leyte.