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Saturday, July 01, 2006
Talk back: US citizenship
By Tet Gambito
This concerns the letter of Percival de la Torre titled “On Filipinos born before July 4, 1946” (Speak Out, June 16, 2006).
De la Torre cites the Citizenship Clause in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
He then enumerates “some exceptions covered by the phrase `subject to the jurisdiction thereof’” which of course show how the phrase is officially and judicially read in the US and that is, as a “qualifying phrase,” a modifier of the element preceding it: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.” (see FindLaw)
Commas
Territorial Filipinos were collectively “hanged by a pair of commas,” already there in the Citizenship Clause but read and ruled to be anywhere, except there!
Had Senator Howard, the author, really intended the phrase, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” to modify the phrase preceding it, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” he could have simply followed what the same 39th Congress did just two months earlier in wording a similar provision in the 1866 Civil Rights Act: OMIT THE COMMAS.
The first sentence in the Act reads: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Owing to the absence of commas, the phrase “and not subject to any foreign power” is no doubt intended to modify or qualify the phrase preceding it, “All persons born in the United States,” which is how it was read and should be.
In the case of the Citizenship Clause, the phrase de la Torre cited, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” is within a pair of commas, with the first comma placed before the coordinating conjunction “and,” and the second before the linking verb “are,” leaving the phrase virtually sandwiched between the subject and the verb.
English grammarians designate an element within a pair of commas, in this instance the phrase de la Torre cited, as “non-restrictive” whenever “the element enclosed is not grammatically essential to the construction of a sentence” and “the omission of which would not change the meaning of the main clause.”
Non-restrictive
Simply put, the rule says: “if it can be omitted,” which means that the element is “non-restrictive,” as in the Citizenship Clause, “it can be set off by commas”; if not, which means that the element is “restrictive,” as in the Civil Rights Act, it “should not be set off by the comma.”
Thus, based on these simple rules, the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”—which, to repeat, is defined as “non-restrictive” since it is “set off by commas”-–is definitely not intended to qualify or modify the element preceding it, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.”
Not only that, but more importantly, the phrase begins with the coordinating conjunction “and.”
Yet, Americans for well over a century now insist that, on the contrary, it is a “qualifying phrase.”
But can the same basic rule of English grammar be applied selectively only to the Civil Rights Act but not to the Citizenship Clause enacted two months later by the very same 39th Congress and edited by the very same Senate Committee on Style?
The next question to pose, of course, is: If the phrase does not act as a modifier, what is it doing there when the basic structure (subject, verb and object) is already there?
Incorrect reading
This incorrect reading of the Citizenship Clause rendered Territorial Filipinos, natural-born citizens of the US under it, STALELESS AT BIRTH, having been disowned, abandoned, and forgotten by the sovereign at their place of birth.
Territorial Filipinos had already been born in territory over which the US was sovereign but they were never afforded the opportunity, at the very least, to renounce or preserve the citizenship or nationality they acquired at birth by the sovereign at their place of nativity upon its withdrawal of that sovereignty.
Well, this entails a longer discussion, more column space, and so we end our response for the meantime.
We most certainty welcome readers to visit our blog at http://ampoy.reklamo.ph/,and encourage those interested to submit their comments towards refining or refuting the arguments we have offered.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 30, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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