Moy Ya Lim Yao vs.
Commissioner of Immigration (1971)
Summary Cases:
● Moy Ya Lim Yao vs. Commissioner of Immigration 41 SCRA 292
Subject: Naturalization of an alien visitor as a Philippine citizen confers upon him the rights of citizenship
including the right to permanently stay in the Philippines; Naturalization by marriage; Ly Giok Ha and
Cua rulings ; Lee Suan Ay and Burca rulings; Re-examination of the doctrine (applying statutory
construction); Present rule (alien woman acquires the Filipino citizenship of her husband, provided she
does not suffer from any disqualifications under the law, even if she does not possess all the
qualifications); Alien wife who is naturalized by marriage to a Filipino is not required to undergo separate
naturalization proceeding; Establishing Filipino citizenship status as a fact
Facts:
Lau Yuen Yeung applied for a passport visa to enter the Philippines as a non-immigrant. In her visa
application, she stated that she was a Chinese residing at Kowloon, Hongkong, and that she desired to
take a pleasure trip to the Philippines to visit her great (grand) uncle Lau Ching Ping for a period of one
month. She was granted a visa which would expire on April 13, 1961. After repeated extensions, Lau
Yuen Yeung was allowed to stay in the Philippines up to February 13, 1962.
On the date of her arrival, Asher Y Cheng filed a bond of P1,000 to undertake, among others, that said
Lau Yuen Yeung would actually depart from the Philippines on or before the expiration of her authorized
period of stay in this country.
On January 25, 1962, Lau Yuen Yeung contracted marriage with Moy Ya Lim Yao alias Edilberto
Aguinaldo Lim an alleged Filipino citizen. Because of the contemplated action of the Commissioner of
Immigration (CIR) to confiscate her bond and order her arrest and immediate deportation, after the
expiration of her authorized stay, she brought an action for injunction with preliminary injunction.
At the hearing, Lau Yuen Yeung admitted that she could not write either English or Tagalog. Except for a
few words, she could not speak either English or Tagalog. She could not name any Filipino neighbor,
with a Filipino name except one, Rosa. She did not know the names of her brothers-in-law, or
sisters-in-law.'
The court (CFI) denied the petition for injunction, citing Section 15 of the Revised Naturalization Law
which provides:
"'Effect of the naturalization on wife and children. Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to
a citizen of the Philippines, and who might herself be lawfully naturalized shall be deemed a citizen of the
Philippines."
The CFI reasoned that Lau Yuen Yeung, while claiming not to be disqualified, does not possesses all the
qualifications to be naturalized, because, having been admitted as a temporary visitor only on March 13,
1961, she lacks at least, the requisite length of residence in the Philippines. Moreoever, given the timing
of the marriage (two weeks before visa expiration), it appears to be effected merely for convenience to
defeat or avoid her then impending compulsory deportation.
During the hearing in the lower court, held almost ten months after the alleged marriage of petitioners,
Lau Yuen Yeung was already carrying in her womb for seven months a child by her husband.
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Lau Yuen Yeung, with her husband Moy Ya Lim Yao (petitioners), filed the present appeal against the
decision of the CFI.
Held:
Naturalization of an alien visitor as a Philippine citizen confers upon him the rights of citizenship
including the right to permanently stay in the Philippines
1. The objection of the Solicitor General, sustained by the CFI, is that “Lau Yuen Yeung, having been
admitted as a temporary alien visitor on the strength of a deliberate and voluntary representation that
she will enter and stay only for a period of one month and thereby secured a visa, cannot go back on her
representation to stay permanently without first departing from the Philippines as she had promised.”
2. The court holds that the portion of Section 9(g) of the Immigration Act providing:
"An alien who is admitted as a non-immigrant cannot remain in the Philippines permanently. To
obtain permanent admission, a non-immigrant alien must depart voluntarily to some foreign
country and procure from the appropriate Philippine consul the proper visa and thereafter undergo
examination by the officers of the Bureau of Immigration at a Philippine port of entry for
determination of his admissibility in accordance with the requirements of this Act."
does not apply to aliens who after coming into the Philippines as temporary visitors, legitimately become
Filipino citizens or acquire Filipino citizenship. Such change of nationality naturally bestows upon them
the right to stay in the Philippines permanently or not, as they may choose, and if they elect to reside
here, the immigration authorities may neither deport them nor confiscate their bonds.
3. The naturalization of an alien visitor as a Philippine citizen logically produces the effect of conferring
upon him ipso facto all the rights of citizenship including that of being entitled to permanently stay in the
Philippines outside the orbit of authority of the Commissioner of Immigration vis-a-vis aliens, if only
because by its very nature and express provisions, the Immigration Law is a law only for aliens and is
inapplicable to citizens of the Philippines.
Naturalization by marriage
4. The second objection of the Solicitor General, sustained by the trial judge, is that Lau Yuen Yeung's
marriage to Moya Lim Yao, a Filipino citizen, did not have the effect of making her a Filipino, since it has
not been shown that she "might herself be lawfully naturalized," it appearing clearly in the record that she
does not possess all the qualifications required of applicants for naturalization by the Revised
Naturalization Law (Commonwealth Act 473) even if she has proven that she does not suffer from any of
the disqualifications thereunder.
(a) Ly Giok Ha and Cua rulings
5. In Ly Giok Ha vs. Galang, the court declared that the bare fact of a valid marriage to a citizen does not
suffice to confer his citizenship upon the wife. Section 15 of the Naturalization Law requires that the alien
woman who marries a Filipino must show, in addition, that she 'might herself be lawfully naturalized' as a
Filipino citizen. As construed in the decision, this last condition requires proof that the woman who
married a Filipino is herself not disqualified under section 4 of the Naturalization Law. In other words, the
Naturalization Law excludes from the benefits of naturalization by marriage, only those disqualified from
being naturalized , and the Court somehow left the impression that no inquiry need be made as to
qualifications. (reiterated in Ricardo Cua vs. The Board of Immigration Commissioners)
6. The rule is that for an alien woman who marries a Filipino to become herself a Filipino citizen, there is
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no need for any naturalization proceeding because she becomes a Filipina ipso facto from the time of
such marriage, provided she does not suffer any of the disqualifications enumerated in Section 4.
(b) Lee Suan Ay and Burca rulings
7. The constuction of the law was modified by the Court in Lee Suan Ay vs. Emilio Galang where the
court held that “the marriage of a Filipino citizen to an alien does not automatically confer Philippine
citizenship upon the latter. She must possesses the qualifications required by law to become a Filipino
citizen by naturalization.”
8. Thus, the prevailing rule, at the time of this decision, is that for an alien woman who marries a Filipino
to be deemed a Filipina, she has to prove in a naturalization proceeding that not only that she has none
of the disqualifications provided in the law but also that she has all the qualifications and complied with
all the formalities required thereby like any other applicant for naturalization. (seeLee Suan Ay vs. Emilio
Galang, Zita Ngo Burca vs. Republic)
(c) Re-examination of the doctrine (applying statutory construction)
9. Section 15 of the Revised Naturalization Law is directly copied and adopted from its American
counterpart, i.e., Section 1994 of the Revised Statutes of the United States as it stood before it repeal in
1922. Before such repeal, the phrase "who might herself be lawfully naturalized" had a definite
unmistakable construction uniformly followed in all courts of the United States that had occasion to apply
the same and which, therefore, must be considered as if it were written in the statute itself. Therefore, in
adopting verbatim the American statute, the legislators have in effect incorporated into the provision the
construction given to it by the American courts and all administrative authorities charged with the
implementation of the naturalization and immigration laws of that country.
10. All authorities in the United States , in construing the said provision ("who might be lawfully
naturalized" ), have consistently and uniformly understood it as conferring American citizenship to alien
women marrying Americans ipso facto, without having to submit to any naturalization proceeding and
without having to prove that they possess the special qualifications of residence, moral character,
adherence to American ideals and American constitution, provided they show they did not suffer from
any of the disqualifications enumerated in the American Naturalization Law.
11. Act 3448, from which Section 15 originated, was enacted in 1928. By that time, Section 1994 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States was no longer in force because it had been repealed expressly the
Act of September 22, 1922 which did away with the automatic naturalization of alien wives of American
citizens and required, instead, that they submit to regular naturalization proceedings. In other words,
when our legislature adopted the phrase in question ("who might be lawfully naturalized" ) which already
had a definite construction in American law, the Americans had already abandoned said phraseology in
favor of a categorical compulsion for alien wives to be naturalized judicially.
12. When Commonwealth Act 473 9Revised Naturalization Law) was approved in 1939, the Philippine
Legislature, already autonomous then from the American Congress, had a clear chance to disregard the
old American law and follow the trend of the new law in 1922, but still, our legislators chose to maintain
the language of the old law. The fact is that our legislature borrowed the phrase when there was already
a settled construction thereof, and what is more, it appears that our legislators even ignored the
modification of the American law and persisted in maintaining the old phraseology. Hence, We have no
alternative but to conclude that our law still follows the old or previous American law on the subject.
13. Moreover, there is are practical considerations that strongly militates against a construction that
Section 15 of the law requires that an alien wife of a Filipino must affirmatively prove that she possesses
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the qualifications prescribed under Section 2, before she may be deemed a citizen. For example, for the
10 year continuous residency requirement, if the wife happens to be a citizen of a country whose law
declares that upon her marriage to a foreigner she automatically loses her citizenship and acquires the
citizenship of her husband, this could mean that for a period of ten years at least, she would be stateless.
And even after having acquired continuous residence in the Philippines for ten years, there is no
guarantee that her petition for naturalization will be granted, in which case she would remain stateless
for an indefinite period of time.
14. A statute is to be construed with reference to its manifest object, and if the language is susceptible of
two constructions, one which will carry out and the other defeat such manifest object, it should receive
the former construction.
15. It is logical to assume that Section 15 was intended to extend special treatment to alien women who
by marrying a Filipino irrevocably deliver themselves, their possessions, their fate and fortunes and all
that marriage implies to a citizen of this country, for better or for worse. Besides, it may be considered
that in reality the extension of citizenship to her is made by the law not so much for her sake as for the
husband.
(d) Present rule (alien woman acquires the Filipino citizenship of her husband, provided she does
not suffer from any disqualifications under the law, even if she does not possess all the
qualifications)
16. Accordingly, we now hold, all previous decisions of this Court indicating otherwise notwithstanding,
that under Section 15 of Commonwealth Act 473, an alien woman marrying a Filipino, native born or
naturalized, becomes ipso facto a Filipina provided she is not disqualified to be a citizen of the
Philippines under Section 4 of the same law.
17. Likewise, an alien woman married to an alien who is subsequently naturalized here follows the
Philippine citizenship of her husband the moment he takes his oath as Filipino citizen, provided that she
does not suffer from any of the disqualifications under said Section 4.
Alien wife who is naturalized by marriage to a Filipino is not required to undergo separate
naturalization proceeding
18. The phrase 'shall be deemed a citizen of the Philippines found in Section 14 of the Revised
Naturalization Law clearly manifests an intent to confer citizenship. Construing a similar phrase found in
the old U.S. naturalization law (Revised Statutes, 1994) , American courts have uniformly taken it to
mean that upon her marriage, the alien woman becomes by operation of law a citizen of the United
States as fully as if she had complied with all the provisions of the statutes upon the subject of
naturalization.
19. This was likewise the intent of the Philippine legislature when it enacted the first paragraph of
Section 15, Revised Naturalization Law. The idea or purpose of the provision was to confer Philippine
citizenship by operation of law upon certain classes of aliens as a legal consequence of their relationship,
by blood affinity, to persons who are already citizens of the Philippines. The relationship to a citizen of
the Philippines is the operative fact which establishes the acquisition of Philippine citizenship by them.
Necessarily, it also determines the points of time at which such citizenship commences.
Establishing Filipino citizenship status as a fact
20. In all instances where citizenship is conferred by operation of law, the time when citizenship is
conferred should not be confused with the time when citizenship status is established as a proven fact.
Thus, even a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, whose citizenship status is put in issue in any
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proceeding would be required to prove, for instance, that his father is a citizen of the Philippines in order
to factually establish his claim to citizenship. His citizenship status commences from the time of birth,
although his claim thereto is established as a fact only at a subsequent time. Likewise, an alien woman
who might herself be a lawfully naturalized becomes a Philippine citizen at the time of her marriage to a
Filipino husband, not at the time she is able to establish that status as a proven fact by showing that she
might herself be lawfully naturalized.
21. Regarding the steps that should be taken by an alien woman married to a Filipino citizen in order to
acquire Philippine citizenship, the procedure followed in the Bureau of Immigration is as follows: The
alien woman must file a petition for the cancellation of her alien certificate of registration alleging, among
other things, that she is married to a Filipino citizen and that she is not disqualified from acquiring her
husband's citizenship pursuant to section 4 of Commonwealth Act No. 473, as amended. Upon the filing
of said petition, which should be accompanied or supported by the joint affidavit of the petitioner and her
Filipino husband to the effect that the petitioner does not belong to any of the groups disqualified by the
cited section from becoming naturalized Filipino citizen, the Bureau of Immigration conducts an
investigation and thereafter promulgates its order or decision granting or denying the petition. Once the
Commissioner of Immigration cancels the subject's registration as an alien, there will probably be less
difficulty in establishing her Filipino citizenship in any other proceeding, depending naturally on the
substance and vigor of the opposition.
DISPOSITION:
IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the judgment of the Court a quo dismissing appellants' petition for
injunction is hereby reversed and the Commissioner of Immigration and/or his authorized representative is
permanently enjoined from causing the arrest and deportation and the confiscation of the bond of appellant
Lau Yuen Yeung, who is hereby declared to have become a Filipino citizen from and by virtue of her marriage
to her co-appellant Moy Ya Lim Yao al as Edilberto Aguinaldo Lim, a Filipino citizen of January 25, 1962. No
costs.
prohibited or restrained by a court order from doing something that would cause harm or loss to another party
those disqualified from being naturalized as citizens of the Philippines under
section 4 of said Commonwealth Act No. 473, namely:
'(a) Persons opposed to organized government or affiliated with any association or group of
persons who uphold and teach doctrines opposing all organized governments;
'(b) Persons defending or teaching the necessity or propriety of violence, personal assault, or
assassination for the success and predominance of their ideas;
'(c) Polygamists or believers in the practice of polygamy;
'(d) Persons convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude;
'(e) Persons suffering from mental alienation or incurable contagious diseases;
'(f) Persons who, during the period of their residence in the Philippines, have not mingled socially
with the Filipinos, or who have not evinced a sincere desire to learn and embrace the customs,
traditions, and ideals of the Filipinos;
'(g) Citizens or subjects of nations with whom the . . . Philippines are at war, during the period of
such war;
'(h) Citizens or subjects of a foreign country other than the United States, whose laws does not
grant Filipinos the right to become naturalized citizens or subjects thereof.'
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