Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay on Monday admitted that he had an American passport, reversing previous statements to the media and congress.

 

Yasay said he forfeited his United States citizenship when he returned to the Philippines three months after acquiring it in Nov. 24, 1986.

 

“At the time I was granted US citizenship I had a preconceived intent of returning back to the Philippines. And it is precisely for that reason that three months after January of 1987 I returned back to the Philippines and this consolidated the position that I did not legally acquire US citizenship,” Yasay said in an interview with ANC channel.

 

He did not say when he returned his passport.

 

Yasay said taking an oath before the US government “does not make me a US citizen if precisely the basis upon which the grant of American citizenship is flawed and is defective.”

 

“I would not have and I did not acquire legally American citizenship,” he said. “I returned all of my papers and executed an affidavit telling the American authorities that I did not qualify and this is my right.”

Yasay also said he remained a Filipino citizen and even used a Philippine passport when he returned to the country in 1987. “I went back as a Filipino, I carried my Philippine passport,” he said. DMS