During American rule, any person born in the country automatically received Philippine citizenship by birth regardless of the nationalities of their parents.

As American nationals, Filipinos were considered to owe allegiance to the U.S. and held some rights and protections from the federal government,[4] but were excluded from political participation and could be treated as foreigners in some circumstances at the discretion of the United States Congress.

[10] Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the U.S. Congress held authority to determine the future citizenship of native residents in the Philippines and its other newly acquired territories.

Under this law, individuals intending to become citizens are required to file a petition for naturalization with the Court of First Instance in the province where they had resided for at least the previous year.

All persons of Chinese origin other than former and existing Philippine residents, as well as those in approved occupational classes, were barred from entering the territory.

[17] The U.S. governed the Philippines as an unincorporated territory[10] that was not considered an integral part of the country and where the Constitution of the United States did not fully apply.

Despite this, they were not considered aliens under U.S. law and were generally exempt from immigration restrictions when entering the U.S.[4] during a time when virtually all other Asians were excluded from entry into the country.

[20] Philippine citizens living in the U.S. also had no pathway to full U.S. citizenship during this time unless they served in the United States Armed Forces; contemporary legislation only allowed "white persons, persons of African nativity or descent, and descendants of races indigenous to the Western Hemisphere" the ability to naturalize, with an exception for military personnel and veterans.

[23] After the passage of the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act, which began a transition period until the territory became independent, Philippine citizens entering the U.S. became subject to an entry quota of only 50 people per year and would thereafter be regarded as aliens for immigration purposes.

Conversely, Philippine citizens who had successfully entered the U.S. could not be subject to deportation nor were they restricted from acquiring property by alien land laws.

Although contemporary law before 1889 was unclear on whether all persons born in the colony were automatically Spanish subjects, the Civil Code was retroactively applied to all births prior to its enactment for the purposes of determining Philippine citizenship.

Despite the fact that the child would have been regarded as Chinese had the Civil Code been in force at the time of their birth, they would have had a right to make a declaration to become a Spanish subject within one year of reaching the age of majority but lacked the ability to do so because of the 1898 change in sovereignty.

While the Court had determined in 1948 that a declaration of intention to naturalize was not required of naturalization candidates on the assumption that any such documents were destroyed during the Second World War, it reinforced this prerequisite in a subsequent 1961 decision in which the only exemptions for this requirement were granted to persons who were born and educated in the Philippines and whose children have also been educated in both domestic primary and secondary schools.

The 1973 constitution also allowed Filipina women who married foreign men to retain Philippine citizenship on their marriage even if they had acquired their husbands' nationalities.

Over the following decade, former natural-born Philippine citizens were granted visa-free entry, expanded ability to invest, and property purchase rights.

[33] The naturalization process was temporarily streamlined in 1975, allowing individuals who wanted to acquire citizenship to apply through an administrative application procedure rather than through the usually required court petition.

Applicants indicated their interest in becoming Philippine citizens to a review committee which would then make recommendations to the president who issued presidential decrees naturalizing successful candidates.

This expedited process was intended to quickly naturalize a large number of the Chinese Filipino population as part of the Marcos regime's preparations to recognize the People's Republic of China and to minimize potential future problems with that government,[35] though it was not limited to that ethnic group and was open to any foreign nationals.