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Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003
‘Fil-pretenders’ put up zone
defense against deportation
By Dave L. Llorito, Research head
(First of 2 parts)
FOR Sen. John Osmeña, what is at stake in the controversy regarding the so-called Fil-foreigners is not only the “credibility and integrity of the Philippine Basketball Association [PBA].” It’s also the “sanctity and honor of having Filipino citizenship.”
On August 7, 2003, the Senate released its Committee Report 256 finding eight PBA basketball players claiming Filipino citizenship as fakes. The Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports, headed by Sen. Robert Barbers, conducted the investigation, which lasted a year.
These eight players are Paul Asi Taulava (Talk ’N Text team), Jonathan Ordonio (Alaska), Andrew Seigle (Purefoods), Davonn Harp (Red Bull), Rudolf Hatfield (Coca-Cola), Michael Alfio Pennisi (Red Bull), Dorian Alan Peña (San Miguel) and Alex Vincent Crisano (Ginebra).
“They are Fil-shams,” concluded Senator Osmeña in his separate report.
Two months after the release of Senate Committee Report 256, the “sanctity and honor of having Filipino citizenship” continues to be trampled on PBA’s basketball courts.
Taulava and the other Fil-shams will probably do so for long, unless the Bureau of Immigration and the Department of Justice could find a way out of the legal tangle that is shackling them from kicking out the Fil-pretenders.
Jun Santander, lawyer for a group of Filipino players who complained against the Fil-shams, finds it lamentable that until now nothing has been done about the recommendations of the Senate Committee Report.
“The more these players stay and play with the PBA, the more they violate the law and the Constitution, besides displacing the local basketball players,” Santander told The Manila Times in a telephone interview.
Senate Committee Report 256 urged the Bureau of Immigration to conduct “summary deportation proceedings” against the Fil-shams. But Santander said the bureau has yet to act on the senators’ recommendations.
“Wala kasing nag-file ng kaso eh,” said Robert Jaworski, Philippine basketball-icon-turned senator. “The results of our investigations are just recommendatory.”
Overtaken by events
Roy Almoro, executive director of the immigration bureau, told The Times that Commissioner Andrea Domingo formed a “task force” on August 11, 2003, to start deportation proceedings against the Fil-shams, five days after the senators released Senate Committee Report 256.
On the same day, Almoro said that, being the head of the new task force, wrote to Antonio A. Abanilla, acting chief state counsel of the Department of Justice, to clarify whether the bureau could immediately initiate the deportation proceedings.
He explained that the bureau gave Taulava and the seven other Fil-shams identification certificates as a “Filipino” after the justice department “affirmed” their citizenships. Technically, therefore, Almoro thinks the department has to revoke the affirmation first before the immigration bureau could initiate deportation proceedings. “Or should we just start now even without the revocation of the affirmation?” Almoro wondered.
“Without that clarification, we cannot move against them,” Almoro said. “Now some people are asking why we are sleeping on the job. But we cannot move without any authority from the justice department.”
Until now, the department has yet to issue an opinion.
The Times called on Abanilla at the department to ask about its failure to respond to the bureau’s request. His staff told me that Abanilla was abroad attending a conference. But one of his senior lawyers, Ruben Fondevilla, explained that the department is reviewing the documents as well as the Senate recommendations.
Fondevilla says it was the justice secretary himself who granted the affirmation, thus they could not just revoke it outright without following certain procedures. “We still have to follow due process.”
So far “due process” is working in favor of the Fil-shams.
On September 3, 2003, Branch 34 of the Manila Regional Trial Court enjoined Justice Secretary Simeon Datumanong and Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo, to suspend or not to cancel Identification Certificate 019150 issued to Taulava.
“In the case of Taulava, we have been overtaken by events,” admitted Almoro. With the case now in court, the issue of summary deportation will ultimately become a civil case.”
That scenario, he says, means that Taulava will present evidence in court to prove that he is a Filipino while the Bureau of Immigration will try to prove that he is a sham, using the Senate findings as among the evidence.
“That process will take time,” admits Almoro, explaining that the deportation of other Fil-shams will be as difficult especially if the seven others will also file an injunction case against the bureau.
The Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports, headed by Sen. Robert Barbers, initiated the investigation into the influx of bogus Filipino American players into the PBA in November 2002 after displaced Filipino players, led by the former Alaska player, Isabelo “Jojo” Lastimosa, publicly aired their gripes.
After seven hearings and several field investigations that ended on May 5, 2003, the senators found that at least eight of the more than two dozen players claiming Filipino ancestry are fake.
Asi Taulava: no records
“Paul Asi Taulava’s claim to Philippine citizenship cannot be established,” stresses the Senate Report. Taulava traces his roots to Samar, but the result of the investigations says otherwise.
“His alleged Filipino mother is Pauline Hernandez Mateaki, whose late registration of birth in Bobon, Samar, was attended by irregularities, because the [registration] was done without the documents required,” said the Senate Report. “…Nobody in San Jose [formerly Caraingan], Samar, the alleged residence of Taulava’s Filipino relatives, knows Ana Hernandez Mateaki and Felipe Mateaki, his grandparents.”
There is no record in Bobon’s register of death nor any record of birth, death or marriage of Ana Hernandez and Felipe Mateaki. “…Members of the Hernandez clan in Santa Clara, Bobon, Samar, belied claims of Taulava that his roots came from the said place,” said the Senate Report.
Nonexistent relatives, suspicious documents
Taulava’s case appears to be consistent with that of other Fil-shams.
Jonathan Ordonio claims to be a Filipino because his grandfather is a Filipino named Mauro Estrada Ordonio, who was supposedly born on December 11, 1913, in Balaoan, La Union. But field investigations done by the Senate revealed no records that could prove his claim.
“The documents Mr. Ordonio filed with the Bureau of Immigration, upon verification through field investigations, resulted in contrary findings,” said the Senate report. “His alleged relatives do not exist in Balaoan, La Union.”
On Harp, the Senate Report has these findings: “Davonn Harp presented before the Bureau of Immigration and the committees a certified true copy of the Certificate of Live Birth of his father, Manuel Arce Gonzales, to prove his claim to Philippine citizenship. It appears, however, that the certificate of birth is simulated, if not highly suspicious.”
“Upon field investigations, the marriage of Manuel Arce Gonzalez’s parents, Davonn’s alleged grandparents, Ernesto Prudencio Gonzales and Natividad de la Cruz, cannot be established,” says the Senate report.
On the part of Hatfield, he submitted documents to the Bureau of Immigration indicating that his grandfather, a certain Don Valdez, was born in Luna, La Union, sometime in 1921. But, according to the Senate Committee Report, “upon a thorough search of birth records in the local civil registry of Luna, La Union, so such records exist.”
In his document submitted to the bureau, Michael Pennisi claims to be a Filipino because of a Filipino mother, Anita Tomeda Quintos. The Senate report, however, says the document is “highly suspicious.”
“His alleged mother and other relatives, especially the parents of the former, Felipe Quintos and Celina G. Tomeda, who were mentioned in his application for recognition of Philippine citizenship in the Bureau of Immigration, are not known and have never existed in Panabingan, San Antonio, Nueva Ecija,” the Senate report stressed.
The same pattern emerged in the case of Dorian Alan Peña and Alex Crisano: their documents are inconsistent and their roots could not be established after field investigations.
The only difference is the case on Andrew Seigle. The senators believed that his claim that Filipino lineage because his mother Blesylda Yadao was a Filipino. Seigle, however, never elected Philippine citizenship immediately after reaching the age of maturity (18 years), thus disqualifying him from having a Philippine passport.
“…The date when Andrew John elected Philippine citizenship, which was November 23 1998, the say was apparently done for convenience and a mere afterthought—that is to qualify as a local player in the professional basketball league,” said the report. “…The Department of Foreign Affairs even canceled Andrew John’s passport based on the same foregoing reasons.”
Fictional, false and fraudulent
“I agree with the findings of the committee that Taulava, Hatfield, Ordonio and Harp are not Filipino citizens,” concluded Senator Osmeña. “They are Fil-shams. Their claims to Filipino citizenship are concocted, fictional, false and fraudulent. The papers they submitted are fakes, falsifications, illusions and misrepresentations.”
Osmeña also agreed with the report on Pennisi, Peña and Crisano. “Their claims to Filipino citizenship were also concocted, scripted and planted to suit their selfish positions. Their supposed ancestors were products of malicious and criminal imaginations, with basketball fortune and other economic rewards as the most obvious motivations.”
But he disagrees with the Senate Committee Report’s findings on Seigle. He said Seigle’s papers are “straightforward, clearcut and substantiated…. There are no fictions, fakes and falsehoods in his case,” he stressed. “The issue against Seigle was purely procedural.”
Seventeen other supposed Filipino Americans—including Eric Menk, Mike Cortez, Jimmy Alapag, Chris Jackson and Robert Duat—were not included in the Senate Committee Report. Nevertheless, Osmeña said their noninclusion should not be taken to mean clearance and confirmation of their Philippine citizenship.
“The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration should continue their investigation into the cases of Fil-Americans,” Osmeña said.
PBA’s motivations
Economic consideration—nay, survival—motivated the PBA to take in the supposed Fil-Americans into the league. Gate receipts are down, hence the need to bring back the crowd, a fact that Jun Bernardino, then-PBA commissioner, admitted to the senators.
“[Gate receipts] continue to drop and so talents obviously have to come in,” said Sen. Robert Jaworski, a former PBA basketball star, at the first hearing. “[They] have to put up some flavor.”
“We are experiencing globalization … and I think everyone is experiencing hard times. We must be honest enough to say that we are experiencing hard times,” Bernardino testified at the first hearing on November 26, 2002.
“Senator Barbers noticed the sparse attendance in the PBA games on TV. “It was not as tremendous as before, when the gym was filled to the rafters. Gone are the days when [ticket scalping] was a very lucrative underground profession.”
“We have to understand that the PBA by itself is not only competing with another basketball league,” Bernardino said at the first hearing. “We are in effect competing with a lot of competitors which are not related to basketball at all. We have theaters, the malls… PBA gate attendance will always be a function of the economy. So you know we are suffering from economic conditions right now. That’s why I think the PBA fans are becoming very, very selective in watching the games.”
The Fil-shams apparently are putting some excitement in the league. But Robert Jaworski Jr. notes that the crowds are not coming back to the games in droves.
“Kitang-kita naman, eh,” he said.
In sports, integrity and credibility are important, Senator Jaworski said. “How can you say it’s fair to play All-Filipino when in fact you are 100-percent American?” “Sa perception pa lang nawawalan na ng gana [yung mga tao].
(To be continued)
Posted on Monday, November 10, 2003
‘Fil-pretenders’ put up zone
defense against deportation
By Dave L. Llorito, Research head
(First of 2 parts)
FOR Sen. John Osmeña, what is at stake in the controversy regarding the so-called Fil-foreigners is not only the “credibility and integrity of the Philippine Basketball Association [PBA].” It’s also the “sanctity and honor of having Filipino citizenship.”
On August 7, 2003, the Senate released its Committee Report 256 finding eight PBA basketball players claiming Filipino citizenship as fakes. The Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports, headed by Sen. Robert Barbers, conducted the investigation, which lasted a year.
These eight players are Paul Asi Taulava (Talk ’N Text team), Jonathan Ordonio (Alaska), Andrew Seigle (Purefoods), Davonn Harp (Red Bull), Rudolf Hatfield (Coca-Cola), Michael Alfio Pennisi (Red Bull), Dorian Alan Peña (San Miguel) and Alex Vincent Crisano (Ginebra).
“They are Fil-shams,” concluded Senator Osmeña in his separate report.
Two months after the release of Senate Committee Report 256, the “sanctity and honor of having Filipino citizenship” continues to be trampled on PBA’s basketball courts.
Taulava and the other Fil-shams will probably do so for long, unless the Bureau of Immigration and the Department of Justice could find a way out of the legal tangle that is shackling them from kicking out the Fil-pretenders.
Jun Santander, lawyer for a group of Filipino players who complained against the Fil-shams, finds it lamentable that until now nothing has been done about the recommendations of the Senate Committee Report.
“The more these players stay and play with the PBA, the more they violate the law and the Constitution, besides displacing the local basketball players,” Santander told The Manila Times in a telephone interview.
Senate Committee Report 256 urged the Bureau of Immigration to conduct “summary deportation proceedings” against the Fil-shams. But Santander said the bureau has yet to act on the senators’ recommendations.
“Wala kasing nag-file ng kaso eh,” said Robert Jaworski, Philippine basketball-icon-turned senator. “The results of our investigations are just recommendatory.”
Overtaken by events
Roy Almoro, executive director of the immigration bureau, told The Times that Commissioner Andrea Domingo formed a “task force” on August 11, 2003, to start deportation proceedings against the Fil-shams, five days after the senators released Senate Committee Report 256.
On the same day, Almoro said that, being the head of the new task force, wrote to Antonio A. Abanilla, acting chief state counsel of the Department of Justice, to clarify whether the bureau could immediately initiate the deportation proceedings.
He explained that the bureau gave Taulava and the seven other Fil-shams identification certificates as a “Filipino” after the justice department “affirmed” their citizenships. Technically, therefore, Almoro thinks the department has to revoke the affirmation first before the immigration bureau could initiate deportation proceedings. “Or should we just start now even without the revocation of the affirmation?” Almoro wondered.
“Without that clarification, we cannot move against them,” Almoro said. “Now some people are asking why we are sleeping on the job. But we cannot move without any authority from the justice department.”
Until now, the department has yet to issue an opinion.
The Times called on Abanilla at the department to ask about its failure to respond to the bureau’s request. His staff told me that Abanilla was abroad attending a conference. But one of his senior lawyers, Ruben Fondevilla, explained that the department is reviewing the documents as well as the Senate recommendations.
Fondevilla says it was the justice secretary himself who granted the affirmation, thus they could not just revoke it outright without following certain procedures. “We still have to follow due process.”
So far “due process” is working in favor of the Fil-shams.
On September 3, 2003, Branch 34 of the Manila Regional Trial Court enjoined Justice Secretary Simeon Datumanong and Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo, to suspend or not to cancel Identification Certificate 019150 issued to Taulava.
“In the case of Taulava, we have been overtaken by events,” admitted Almoro. With the case now in court, the issue of summary deportation will ultimately become a civil case.”
That scenario, he says, means that Taulava will present evidence in court to prove that he is a Filipino while the Bureau of Immigration will try to prove that he is a sham, using the Senate findings as among the evidence.
“That process will take time,” admits Almoro, explaining that the deportation of other Fil-shams will be as difficult especially if the seven others will also file an injunction case against the bureau.
The Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports, headed by Sen. Robert Barbers, initiated the investigation into the influx of bogus Filipino American players into the PBA in November 2002 after displaced Filipino players, led by the former Alaska player, Isabelo “Jojo” Lastimosa, publicly aired their gripes.
After seven hearings and several field investigations that ended on May 5, 2003, the senators found that at least eight of the more than two dozen players claiming Filipino ancestry are fake.
Asi Taulava: no records
“Paul Asi Taulava’s claim to Philippine citizenship cannot be established,” stresses the Senate Report. Taulava traces his roots to Samar, but the result of the investigations says otherwise.
“His alleged Filipino mother is Pauline Hernandez Mateaki, whose late registration of birth in Bobon, Samar, was attended by irregularities, because the [registration] was done without the documents required,” said the Senate Report. “…Nobody in San Jose [formerly Caraingan], Samar, the alleged residence of Taulava’s Filipino relatives, knows Ana Hernandez Mateaki and Felipe Mateaki, his grandparents.”
There is no record in Bobon’s register of death nor any record of birth, death or marriage of Ana Hernandez and Felipe Mateaki. “…Members of the Hernandez clan in Santa Clara, Bobon, Samar, belied claims of Taulava that his roots came from the said place,” said the Senate Report.
Nonexistent relatives, suspicious documents
Taulava’s case appears to be consistent with that of other Fil-shams.
Jonathan Ordonio claims to be a Filipino because his grandfather is a Filipino named Mauro Estrada Ordonio, who was supposedly born on December 11, 1913, in Balaoan, La Union. But field investigations done by the Senate revealed no records that could prove his claim.
“The documents Mr. Ordonio filed with the Bureau of Immigration, upon verification through field investigations, resulted in contrary findings,” said the Senate report. “His alleged relatives do not exist in Balaoan, La Union.”
On Harp, the Senate Report has these findings: “Davonn Harp presented before the Bureau of Immigration and the committees a certified true copy of the Certificate of Live Birth of his father, Manuel Arce Gonzales, to prove his claim to Philippine citizenship. It appears, however, that the certificate of birth is simulated, if not highly suspicious.”
“Upon field investigations, the marriage of Manuel Arce Gonzalez’s parents, Davonn’s alleged grandparents, Ernesto Prudencio Gonzales and Natividad de la Cruz, cannot be established,” says the Senate report.
On the part of Hatfield, he submitted documents to the Bureau of Immigration indicating that his grandfather, a certain Don Valdez, was born in Luna, La Union, sometime in 1921. But, according to the Senate Committee Report, “upon a thorough search of birth records in the local civil registry of Luna, La Union, so such records exist.”
In his document submitted to the bureau, Michael Pennisi claims to be a Filipino because of a Filipino mother, Anita Tomeda Quintos. The Senate report, however, says the document is “highly suspicious.”
“His alleged mother and other relatives, especially the parents of the former, Felipe Quintos and Celina G. Tomeda, who were mentioned in his application for recognition of Philippine citizenship in the Bureau of Immigration, are not known and have never existed in Panabingan, San Antonio, Nueva Ecija,” the Senate report stressed.
The same pattern emerged in the case of Dorian Alan Peña and Alex Crisano: their documents are inconsistent and their roots could not be established after field investigations.
The only difference is the case on Andrew Seigle. The senators believed that his claim that Filipino lineage because his mother Blesylda Yadao was a Filipino. Seigle, however, never elected Philippine citizenship immediately after reaching the age of maturity (18 years), thus disqualifying him from having a Philippine passport.
“…The date when Andrew John elected Philippine citizenship, which was November 23 1998, the say was apparently done for convenience and a mere afterthought—that is to qualify as a local player in the professional basketball league,” said the report. “…The Department of Foreign Affairs even canceled Andrew John’s passport based on the same foregoing reasons.”
Fictional, false and fraudulent
“I agree with the findings of the committee that Taulava, Hatfield, Ordonio and Harp are not Filipino citizens,” concluded Senator Osmeña. “They are Fil-shams. Their claims to Filipino citizenship are concocted, fictional, false and fraudulent. The papers they submitted are fakes, falsifications, illusions and misrepresentations.”
Osmeña also agreed with the report on Pennisi, Peña and Crisano. “Their claims to Filipino citizenship were also concocted, scripted and planted to suit their selfish positions. Their supposed ancestors were products of malicious and criminal imaginations, with basketball fortune and other economic rewards as the most obvious motivations.”
But he disagrees with the Senate Committee Report’s findings on Seigle. He said Seigle’s papers are “straightforward, clearcut and substantiated…. There are no fictions, fakes and falsehoods in his case,” he stressed. “The issue against Seigle was purely procedural.”
Seventeen other supposed Filipino Americans—including Eric Menk, Mike Cortez, Jimmy Alapag, Chris Jackson and Robert Duat—were not included in the Senate Committee Report. Nevertheless, Osmeña said their noninclusion should not be taken to mean clearance and confirmation of their Philippine citizenship.
“The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration should continue their investigation into the cases of Fil-Americans,” Osmeña said.
PBA’s motivations
Economic consideration—nay, survival—motivated the PBA to take in the supposed Fil-Americans into the league. Gate receipts are down, hence the need to bring back the crowd, a fact that Jun Bernardino, then-PBA commissioner, admitted to the senators.
“[Gate receipts] continue to drop and so talents obviously have to come in,” said Sen. Robert Jaworski, a former PBA basketball star, at the first hearing. “[They] have to put up some flavor.”
“We are experiencing globalization … and I think everyone is experiencing hard times. We must be honest enough to say that we are experiencing hard times,” Bernardino testified at the first hearing on November 26, 2002.
“Senator Barbers noticed the sparse attendance in the PBA games on TV. “It was not as tremendous as before, when the gym was filled to the rafters. Gone are the days when [ticket scalping] was a very lucrative underground profession.”
“We have to understand that the PBA by itself is not only competing with another basketball league,” Bernardino said at the first hearing. “We are in effect competing with a lot of competitors which are not related to basketball at all. We have theaters, the malls… PBA gate attendance will always be a function of the economy. So you know we are suffering from economic conditions right now. That’s why I think the PBA fans are becoming very, very selective in watching the games.”
The Fil-shams apparently are putting some excitement in the league. But Robert Jaworski Jr. notes that the crowds are not coming back to the games in droves.
“Kitang-kita naman, eh,” he said.
In sports, integrity and credibility are important, Senator Jaworski said. “How can you say it’s fair to play All-Filipino when in fact you are 100-percent American?” “Sa perception pa lang nawawalan na ng gana [yung mga tao].
(To be continued)
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