ROA vs.

Collector of Customs
FACTS:
On July 6, 1889, appellant Tranquilino Roa was born in lawful wedlock in the Philippines
to a Chinese father and a Filipina mother. His father went to China in 1985 and died
there about 1900. On 1901, while still a minor, appellant was sent to China by his
mother to study. When he returned to the Philippine Islands on 1910, he was denied
admission by the Board of Special Inquiry for the reason that he takes the nationality of
his father and thus becomes a subject of the Emperor of China and not a citizen of the
Philippines, to which the Insular Collector of Customs affirmed. Appellant filed the
appeal from a judgment of CFI of Cebu, who likewise remanded the appellant to the
Collector of Customs.
ISSUE:
Whether or not appellant is a citizen of the Philippine Islands.
HELD:
YES. The mother before she married was a Spanish subject and entitled to all the
rights, privileges and immunities pertaining thereto. Upon the death of her husband,
which occurred after the Philippine Islands were ceded to the United States, she, under
the rule prevailing in the United States, ipso facto reacquired the nationality of the
Philippine Islands, being that of her native country. If it may be said that during the
lifetime of the father minor children follow his nationality, it logically follows, by the
widow placing herself and her children within the jurisdiction of the United States on his
death, whereby she herself reacquires her former nationality, and she being the natural
guardian of such children, that they should follow her nationality, with the proviso that on
becoming of age they may elect for themselves. The nationality of the appellant having
followed that of his mother, he was therefore a citizen of the Philippine Islands on July 1,
1902, and never having expatriated himself, he still remains a citizen of this country.

Reported by: Vincent Louie A. Raotraot