[No. L-1812.

August 27, 1948]

EREMES KOOKOORITCHKIN, petitioner, vs. THE

SOLICITOR GENERAL, oppositor

1. POLITICAL LAW; CITIZENSHIP; DECLARATION OF

INTENTION TO BECOME CITIZEN; ATTACHMENT OF
CERTIFICATE OF ARRIVAL NOT ESSENTIAL TO
VALIDITY OF DECLARATION.—Attachment of the
certificate of arrival is not essential to the validity of a
declaration of intention to become a Filipino citizen,
because section 5 of Commonwealth Act No. 473 merely
uses the words “has been issued.”

2. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; EVIDENCE; JUDICIAL NOTICE;

ARRIVAL AND LANDING OF RUSSIAN REFUGEES IN
MARCH, 1923.—The Court may take judicial notice of the
arrival of Russian refugees in March, 1923, aboard a fleet
under the command of Admiral S, who were allowed to
land and remain in the Philippines or proceed to other
countries, except about 800 who were allowed to go to the
United States and given free transportation on the naval
transport “Merritt.”

3. ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; ID. ; PERMANENT RESIDENCE, PROOF

OF.—The undisputed fact that petitioner has been
continuously residing in the Philippines for about 25
years, without having been molested by the authorities,
who are presumed to have been regularly performing their
duties and would have arrested petitioner if his residence
is illegal, as rightly contended by appellee, can be taken as
evidence that he is enjoying permanent residence legally.

4. ID.; ID.; ID.; ID.; CERTIFICATE OF ARRIVAL, PROOF

OF.—That a certificate of arrival has been issued is a fact
that should be accepted upon the petitioner’s undisputed
statement in his declaration of July, 1940, that the
certificate had actually been attached to the declaration,
because it cannot be supposed that the receiving official
would have accepted the declaration without the
certificate mentioned therein as attached thereto.
Petitioner’s declaration is valid under section 5 of the
 Naturalization Law, failure to reconstitute the certificate
of arrival notwithstanding. What an unreconstituted
document intended to prove may be shown by other
competent evidence.

5. lD.; ID.; PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE, KNOWLEDGE OF

ANY; SUFFICIENCY; CASE AT BAR.—The lower court
made the finding of fact that applicant speaks and writes
English and Bicol and there seems to be no question about
the competency of the judge who made the
pronouncement, because he has shown by the appealed
resolution and by his questions propounded to appellee,
that he has command of both English and Bicol.

436

436 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

The law has not set a specific standard of the required

ability to speak and write any of the principal Philippine
languages. There is reason to believe that the lower court’s
pronouncement is well taken considering the fact that,
after he was liberated in 1942 from the Japanese in the
Naga prison, petitioner joined the guerrilla in the Bicol
region, took part in encounters and skirmishes against the
Japanese, and remained with the guerrilla until the
Americans liberated the Bicol provinces. If appellee with
his smattering of Bicol was able to get along with his Bicol
comrades in the hazardous life of the resistance
movement, it is believed that his knowledge of the
language satisfies the requirement of the law.

6. ID.; ID.; PHILIPPINE LANGUAGES, ABILITY TO

WRITE ANY; PROOF; CASE AT BAR.—Appellant
contends that there is no piece of positive evidence to
support petitioner’s allegation that he can write too in the
Bicol language. There is, however, on record
circumstantial evidence from which it can be concluded
that petitioner ought to know also how to write Bicol.
Bicol, as all the important Philippine languages, uses the
same alphabet used in English, and it is much easier to
write Bicol than English, because it is phonetic. Vowels
and consonants have in them single and not
interchangeable phonetic values, while English words
deviate very often from the basic sounds of the alphabet.
The ability to write cannot be denied to a person like
 petitioner, who has undergone the exacting technical
training to be able to render services as flier in the
Russian Naval Squadron in the Baltic Sea and in the
British Air Forces during the first World War. The
difference between the Cyrillic alphabet, as now used by
Russians, and our Roman alphabet, cannot weigh much to
deny petitioner the ability to use the latter. A person who
has shown the command of English which can be seen in
his testimony on record can easily make use of an
alphabet of twenty or more letters universally used in this
country where he has been residing continuously for 25
years.

7. ID.; ID.; STATELESS, STATUS OF BEING; PROOF.—

The lower court did not err in pronouncing appellee
stateless. Appellee’s testimony, besides being
uncontradicted, is supported by the well-known fact that
the ruthlessness of modern dictatorships has scattered
throughout the world a large number of stateless refugees
or displaced persons, without country and without flag.
The tyrannical intolerance of said dictatorships toward all
opposition induced them to resort to beastly oppression,
con-centration camps and blood purges, and it is only
natural that the not-so-fortunate ones who were able to
escape to foreign countries should feel the loss of all bonds
of attachment to

437

VOL. 81, AUGUST 27, 1948 437

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

the hells which were formerly their fatherland’s.

Petitioner belongs to that group of stateless refugees.
Knowing, as all cultured persons all over the world ought
to know, the history, nature and character of the Soviet
dictatorship, presently the greatest menace to humanity
and civilization, it would be technically fastidious to
require further evidence of petitioner’s claim that he is
stateless than his testimony that he owes no allegiance to
the Russian Communist government and, because he has
been at war with it, he fled from Russia to permanently
reside in the Philippines.

APPEAL from a resolution of the Court of First Instance of

Camarines Sur. Surtida, J.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
First Assistant Solicitor General Roberto A. Gianzon and
Solicitor Florencio Villamor for appellant.
L.D. Lockwood “i Manuel O. Chan for appellee.

PERFECTO, J.:

In August, 1941, appellee filed with the lower court a

petition for naturalization, accompanied with supporting
affidavits of two citizens, copy of a declaration of intention
sworn in July, 1940, and proper notice of the hearing. The
petition was finally set for hearing on December 18, 1941,
but it was not held on that date because the province was
invaded by the Japanese forces on December 14, and the
case remained pending until the records were destroyed
during the military operations for liberation in March,
1945. The case was declared reconstituted on May 10, 1947,
and the evidence was presented on August 28 and
September 30, 1947. On the same day resolution was
issued granting the petition.
Although appellant was represented at the hearing and
cross-examined the witnesses for the petitioner, he did not
file an opposition or presented any evidence.
The lower court made the findings of fact in the
following paragraphs of its resolution:

“Eremes Kookooritchkin applies for Philippine citizenship by

naturalization under the provisions of Commonwealth Act 473, as
amended by Act 535.

438

438 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

“The record shows that in August, 1941, he filed his petition for
naturalization supported by the affidavits of ex-Judge Jaime M.
Reyes and Dr. Salvador Mariano, both residents of Camarines
Sur. In the preceding year, in July, 1940 to be precise, he filed his
declaration of intention to become a citizen of this country. Notice
of the hearing was published as required by law.
“It was, established at the hearing that the petitioner is a
nativeborn Russian, having first seen the light of day on
November 4, 1897 in the old City of St. Petersburg, Russia. He
grew up as a citizen of the defunct Imperial Russian Government
under the Czars. World War hè found him in the military service
of this Government. In 1915 he volunteered for the Imperial
Russian navy and was sent to the Navy Aviation School. He
fought with the Allies in the Baltic Sea, was later transferred to
the eastern front in Poland, and much later was sent as a navy
flier to Asia Minor. In the latter part of the war, but before the
Russian capitulation, he was transferred to the British Air Force
under which he served for fourteen months. When the revolution
broke out in Russia in 1917, he joined the White Russian Army at
Vladivostok and fought against the Bolsheviks until 1922 when
the White Russian Army was overwhelmed by the Bolsheviks. As
he refused to join the Bolshevik regime, he fled by sea from
Vladivostok to Shanghai and from this Chinese port he found his
way to Manila, arriving at this port as a member of a group of
White Russians under Admiral Stark in March, 1923. He stayed
in Manila for about seven months, then moved to Olongapo,
Zambales, where he resided for about a year, and from this place
he went to Iriga, Camarines Sur, where he established his
permanent residence since May, 1925. He has remained a
resident of this municipality, except for a brief period from 1942
to July, 1945, when by reason of his underground activities he
roamed the mountains of Caramoan as a guerrilla officer. After
liberation he returned to Iriga where again he resides up to the
present time.
“The applicant is married to a Filipino by the name of
Concepcion Segovia, with whom he has one son named Ronald
Kookooritchkin. He is at present studying in Saint Agnes
Academy, at Legaspi, Albay, a school duly recognized by the
Government.
“The applicant is shop superintendent of A.L. Ammen
Transportation Company, with about eighty Filipino employees
working under him. He receives an annual salary of P13,200 with
free quarters and house allowance. He also owns stocks and bonds
of this and other companies.
“The applicant speaks and writes English and the Bicol dialect.
Socially he intermingles with the Filipinos, attending parties,
dances and other social functions with his wife. He has a good
moral

439

VOL. 81, AUGUST 27, 1948 439

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

character and believes in the principles underlying the Philippine

Constitution. He has never been accused of any crime. On the
other hand, he has always conducted himself in a proper and
irreproachable manner during his entire period of residence in
Camarines Sur, in his relations with the constituted authorities
as well as with the community.
 “Although he could have lived in ease by maintaining good
relations with the enemy by reason of his being Russian-born
during the years preceding the declaration of war by Russia
against Japan, the applicant of his own volition chose to cast his
lot with the guerrilla movement and fought the enemy in several
encounters in the Province of Camarines Sur. He belonged to the
guerrilla outfit of Colonel Padua with rank of major. Upon the
arrival of the forces of liberation he was attached to the American
Army from April to June, 1945.
“Although a Russian by birth he is not a citizen of Soviet
Russia. He disclaims allegiance to the present Communist
Government of Russia. He is, therefore, a stateless refugee in this
country, belonging to no State, much less to the present
Government of the land of his birth to which he is
uncompromisingly opposed. He is not against organized
government or affiliated with any association which upholds and
teaches doctrine opposing all organized governments. He does not
believe in the necessity or propriety of violence, personal assault
or assassination for the success or predominance of his ideas.
Neither is he a polygamist or a believer in the practice of
polygamy. He is not suffering from any mental alienation or
incurable contagious disease.”

Appellant assigns four errors in the appealed resolution.

We will consider them separately.

Appellant claims that the lower court erred in not finding

that the declaration of intention to become a Filipino
citizen filed by appellee is invalid and insufficient as a
basis for the petition of naturalization. The question calls
for the application of the following provision of section 5 of
the Revised Naturalization Law:

“No declaration shall be valid until entry for permanent residence

has been established and a certificate showing the date, place and
manner of his arrival has been issued.”

Appellant alleges that no documentary or testimonial

evidence was introduced to establish the fact that appellee
440

440 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General
had lawfully been admitted into the Philippines for
permanent residence.
In the reconstituted declaration (page 11, record on
appeal) the following can be read:

“I arrived at the Port of Manila on or about the first day of March,

1923, as shown by the attached certificate of arrival or landing
certificate of residence.”

The records of the Bureau of Justice, where the

declarations of intention to become a Filipino citizen were
filed, had been lost or destroyed during the battle for the
liberation of Manila, and the certificate alluded to has not
been reconstituted.
Appellant’s contention that attachment of the certificate
of arrival is essential to the validity of a declaration finds
no support in the wordings of the law, as the above-quoted
section 5 of Commonwealth Act No. 473 uses the words
“has been issued.”
Appellee suggests that we should not consider the
question here raised by appellant, the latter having failed
to raise it in the lower court and points out that there is
testimonial evidence showing appellee’s arrival in March,
1923, and that he was lawfully admitted for permanent
residence, and the testimony of petitioner has not been
refuted. Appellee alleges that the office of the President has
certified that it is a matter of record that petitioner was
one of the Russian refugees who entered the Philippines
under the command of Admiral Stark, the facts regarding
arrival of the latter fleet being a matter of common
knowledge, widely publicized in the newspapers at the
time, of which this Court may properly take judicial notice
under section 5 of Rule 123. When the fleet entered the
Philippine waters, it was met by a United States destroyer
and personally investigated by Governor General Wood
who, later, took the matter up with the authorities in
Washington in lengthy correspondence, and the 1,200
persons manning the fleet were allowed to land and to
remain in the Philippines or proceed to other countries,
except about 800 who were allowed to go to the
441

VOL. 81, AUGUST 27, 1948 441

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

United States and given free transportation on the naval

transport “Merritt.” The ships of the fleet were sold in the
Philippines.
The undisputed fact that petitioner has been
continuously residing in the Philippines for about 25 years,
without having been molested by the authorities, who are
presumed to have been regularly performing their duties
and would have arrested petitioner if his residence is
illegal, as rightly contended by appellee, can be taken as
evidence that he is enjoying permanent residence legally.
That a certificate of arrival has been issued is a fact that
should be accepted upon the petitioner’s undisputed
statement in his declaration of July, 1940, that the
certificate had actually been attached to the declaration,
because it cannot be supposed that the receiving official
would have accepted the declaration without the certificate
mentioned therein as attached thereto.
We conclude that petitioner’s declaration is valid under
section 5 of the Naturalization Law, failure to reconstitute
the certificate of arrival notwithstanding. What an
unreconstituted document intended to prove may be shown
by other competent evidence.

II

The second assignment of error touches upon two

questions, that the lower court erred (1) in not finding that
appellee has not established a legal residence in the
Philippines, and (2) in not finding that he cannot speak and
write any of the principal Philippine languages.
The first question has already been disposed of in the
above discussion. Perusal of the testimonies on record leads
to the conclusion that petitioner has shown legal residence
in the Philippines for a continuous period of not less than
ten years as required by section 2 of Commonwealth Act
No. 473.
As to the next question, appellant alleges that in the
oral test at the hearing, it was demonstrated that
petitioner has only a smattering of Bicol, the Filipino lan-

442

442 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

guage that petitioner alleges to know, and he cannot speak

it as he was not able to translate from English to Bicol
questions asked by the court and the provincial fiscal,
although, in the continuation of the hearing on September
30, 1947, “surprisingly enough, he succeeded answering
correctly in Bicol the questions propounded by his counsel,
however, he fumbled and failed to give the translation of
such a common word as ‘love’ which the fiscal asked of
him.”
The lower court made the finding of fact that applicant
speaks and writes English and Bicol and there seems to be
no question about the competency of the judge who made
the pronouncement, because he has shown by the appealed
resolution and by his questions propounded to appellee,
that he has command of both English and Bicol.
The law has not set a specific standard of the required
ability to speak and write any of the principal Philippine
languages. A great number of standards can be set. There
are experts in English who say that Shakespeare has used
in his works 15,000 different English words, and the King’s
Bible about 10,000, while about 5,000 are used by the
better educated persons and about 3,000 by the average
individual. While there may be persons ambitious enough
to have a command of the about 600,000 words recorded in
the Webster’s International Dictionary, there are
authorities who would reduce basic English to a few
hundred words. Perhaps less than one hundred well
selected words will be enough for the ordinary purposes of
daily life.
There is reason to believe that the lower court’s
pronouncement is well taken considering the fact that,
after he was liberated in 1942 from the Japanese in the
Naga prison, petitioner joined the guerrilla in the Bicol
region, took part in encounters and skirmishes against the
Japanese, and remained with the guerrilla until the
Americans liberated the Bicol provinces. If appellee with
his smattering of Bicol was able to get along with his Bicol
comrades in the hazardous life of the resistance move-
443

VOL. 81, AUGUST 27, 1948 443

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

ment, we believe that his knowledge of the language

satisfies the requirement of the law.
But appellant contends that there is no piece of positive
evidence to support petitioner’s allegation that he can write
too in the Bicol language. There is, however, on record
circumstantial evidence from which it can be concluded
that petitioner ought to know also how to write Bicol. We
know that Bicol, as all the important Philippine languages,
uses the same alphabet used in English, and it is much
easier to write Bicol than English, because it is phonetic.
Vowels and consonants have in them single and not
interchangeable phonetic values, while English words
deviate very often from the basic sounds of the alphabet.
The ability to write cannot be denied to a person like
petitioner, who has undergone the exacting technical
training to be able to render services as flier in the Russian
Naval Squadron in the Baltic Sea and in the British Air
Forces during the first World War. The difference between
the Cyrillic alphabet, as now used by Russians, and our
Roman alphabet, cannot weigh much to deny petitioner the
ability to use the latter. A person who has shown the
command of English which can be seen in his testimony on
record can easily make use of an alphabet of twenty or
more letters universally used in this country where he has
been residing continuously for 25 years.

III

Appellant contends that the lower court erred in finding

appellee stateless and not a Russian citizen and in not
finding that he has failed to establish that he is not
disqualified for Philippine citizenship under section 4 (h) of
the Revised Naturalization Law.
It is contended that petitioner failed to show that under
the laws of Russia, appellee has lost his Russian
citizenship and failed to show that Russia grants to
Filipinos the right to become naturalized citizens or
subjects thereof. The controversy centers on the question as
to whether petitioner is a Russian citizen or is stateless.
444

444 PHILIPPINE REPORTS ANNOTATED

Kookooritchkin vs. Solicitor General

Petitioner testified categorically that he is not a Russian

citizen and that he has no citizenship, His testimony
supports the lower court’s pronouncement that petitioner is
a stateless refugee in this country,
Appellant points out that petitioner stated in his
petition for naturalization that he is citizen or subject of
the Empire of Russia, but the Empire of Russia has ceased
to exist since the Czars were overthrown in 1917 by the
Bolshevists, and petitioner disclaims allegiance or
connection with the Soviet Government established after
the overthrow of the Czarist Government.
 We do not believe that the lower court erred in
pronouncing appellee stateless. Appellee’s testimony,
besides being uncontradicted, is supported by the well-
known fact that the ruthlessness of modern dictatorships
has scattered throughout the world a large number of
stateless refugees or displaced persons, without country
and without flag. The tyrannical intolerance of said
dictatorships toward all opposition induced them to resort
to beastly oppression, concentration camps and blood
purges, and it is only natural that the not-so-fortunate ones
who were able to escape to foreign countries should feel the
loss of all bonds of attachment to the hells which were
formerly their fatherland’s. Petitioner belongs to that group
of stateless refugees.
Knowing, as all cultured persons all over the world
ought to know, the history, nature and character of the
Soviet dictatorship, presently the greatest menace to
humanity and civilization, it would be technically
fastidious to require further evidence of petitioner’s claim
that he is stateless than his testimony that he owes no
allegiance to the Russian Communist government and,
because he has been at war with it, he fled from Russia to
permanently reside in the Philippines. After finding in this
country economic security in a remunerative job,
establishing a family by marrying a Filipina with whom he
has a son, and enjoying for 25 years the freedoms and
blessings of our democratic way of life, and after showing
his
445

VOL. 81, AUGUST 27, 1948 445

Go King vs. Geronimo

resolution to retain the happiness he found in our political

system to the extent of refusing to claim Russian
citizenship even to secure his release from the Japanese
and of casting his lot with that of our people by joining the
fortunes and misfortunes of our guerrillas, it would be
beyond comprehension to support that the petitioner could
feel any bond of attachment to the Soviet dictatorship.

IV

The fourth and last assignment of error need not be

discussed, it being only a sequel of the other assignments
and has necessarily been disposed of in their discussion.
The appealed resolution is affirmed.
 Parás, Actg. C.J., Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Briones,
Padilla, and Tuason, JJ., concur.

Resolution affirmed.

_____________

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