ID :
12665
Wed, 07/16/2008 - 11:26
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/12665
The shortlink copeid
16 war-displaced Japanese-Filipinos arrive seeking citizenship+
TOKYO, July 16 Kyodo - Sixteen Japanese-Filipinos left behind in the Philippines after World War II arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday seeking Japanese citizenship and information on their fathers or relatives.
All but one have already filed a petition with the Tokyo Family Court to create their family registers, a necessary legal procedure for them to be granted citizenship, according to a Tokyo-based support group.
They will then go through interviews Thursday and Friday at the court, while the remaining one will also submit a similar petition after the weeklong trip, the Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center said.
Except for 82-year-old Conchita Timbol who herself married a Japanese man and came to Japan on behalf of her physically disabled daughter, all are Filipinos fathered by Japanese who emigrated to the Philippines before the war.
Most in the group -- six men and 10 women aged 64 to 83 -- remember the name of their fathers or husbands and some know which prefecture they were from, but few have further information, according to the center.
Gloria Hokazono Cequinia, 64, is the sole Filipina among the 16 who has successfully found her father's relatives with the support of the center and is set to meet them in Kagoshima Prefecture on Wednesday.
The group met with some Japanese lawmakers Tuesday evening at a House of Representatives building in Tokyo's Nagata-cho district and called on them for political support in their efforts in seeking Japanese nationality.
''It has been my dream to come to my father's country,'' Cequinia told the lawmakers, while wiping away tears with a handkerchief. ''The sense of joy in coming here is beyond description.'' Their meeting was open to the press.
After the end of the war, her father Hideo Hokazono was put in a prison camp and her mother took her to the camp each day to see him. But he was repatriated to Japan later and she never saw him again.
''Please help us,'' said Timbol. She married Tsutomu Hayashi in Bataan on the island of Luzon but was separated from him in the mountains after the outbreak of the war. She later found out he died and has lived in widowhood since.
Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer who has worked on their registry case, also said to the politicians, ''I strongly urge the governments of Japan and the Philippines to join hands in creating a list of war-displaced Japanese descendents left in the Philippines, which I believe will significantly accelerate the procedure with their family registry petitions.''Before World War II, about 30,000 Japanese men are believed to have emigrated to the Philippines to engage in farming and construction work, and many of them married local women.
They were forcibly deported to Japan or lived in the backwoods after Japan's wartime defeat.
Their families often fell victim to discrimination and reprisal against Japan's wartime occupation. They often hid their identities and got rid of their marriage or birth certificates as well as other papers that might have suggested their association with Japan.
Only two of the 16 possess Philippine nationality and the others entered Japan with special travel permits, according to the center's director, Toshiko Takano.
''Two major reasons seem to lie behind their strong eagerness for Japanese nationality,'' she said. ''One is their wish to find out who they are and the other is their concerns about the future of their offspring.'' ''Many of them seem to wish to gain Japanese citizenship so that their children can obtain Japanese resident visas, which would allow them to enter the country to work,'' Takano said. ''The parents don't want their children to go through the financial hardship experienced by themselves.''A ray of hope shines on their situation as the family court last October recognized as Japanese two Filipinos whose fathers' names were not confirmed in Japan's family registry system.
The breakthrough came after the court also granted Japanese nationality in February 2006 to two Filipina sisters whose father's records were kept in the registry system.
Still, only seven including the four have been recognized as Japanese among 84 people who have petitioned for family registry. There are a total of 160 second-generation Japanese-Filipinos left in the country.
The legal support center started this project in 2005, the year that marked the 60th anniversary of the war's end, and has facilitated two other such visits to Japan.
All but one have already filed a petition with the Tokyo Family Court to create their family registers, a necessary legal procedure for them to be granted citizenship, according to a Tokyo-based support group.
They will then go through interviews Thursday and Friday at the court, while the remaining one will also submit a similar petition after the weeklong trip, the Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center said.
Except for 82-year-old Conchita Timbol who herself married a Japanese man and came to Japan on behalf of her physically disabled daughter, all are Filipinos fathered by Japanese who emigrated to the Philippines before the war.
Most in the group -- six men and 10 women aged 64 to 83 -- remember the name of their fathers or husbands and some know which prefecture they were from, but few have further information, according to the center.
Gloria Hokazono Cequinia, 64, is the sole Filipina among the 16 who has successfully found her father's relatives with the support of the center and is set to meet them in Kagoshima Prefecture on Wednesday.
The group met with some Japanese lawmakers Tuesday evening at a House of Representatives building in Tokyo's Nagata-cho district and called on them for political support in their efforts in seeking Japanese nationality.
''It has been my dream to come to my father's country,'' Cequinia told the lawmakers, while wiping away tears with a handkerchief. ''The sense of joy in coming here is beyond description.'' Their meeting was open to the press.
After the end of the war, her father Hideo Hokazono was put in a prison camp and her mother took her to the camp each day to see him. But he was repatriated to Japan later and she never saw him again.
''Please help us,'' said Timbol. She married Tsutomu Hayashi in Bataan on the island of Luzon but was separated from him in the mountains after the outbreak of the war. She later found out he died and has lived in widowhood since.
Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer who has worked on their registry case, also said to the politicians, ''I strongly urge the governments of Japan and the Philippines to join hands in creating a list of war-displaced Japanese descendents left in the Philippines, which I believe will significantly accelerate the procedure with their family registry petitions.''Before World War II, about 30,000 Japanese men are believed to have emigrated to the Philippines to engage in farming and construction work, and many of them married local women.
They were forcibly deported to Japan or lived in the backwoods after Japan's wartime defeat.
Their families often fell victim to discrimination and reprisal against Japan's wartime occupation. They often hid their identities and got rid of their marriage or birth certificates as well as other papers that might have suggested their association with Japan.
Only two of the 16 possess Philippine nationality and the others entered Japan with special travel permits, according to the center's director, Toshiko Takano.
''Two major reasons seem to lie behind their strong eagerness for Japanese nationality,'' she said. ''One is their wish to find out who they are and the other is their concerns about the future of their offspring.'' ''Many of them seem to wish to gain Japanese citizenship so that their children can obtain Japanese resident visas, which would allow them to enter the country to work,'' Takano said. ''The parents don't want their children to go through the financial hardship experienced by themselves.''A ray of hope shines on their situation as the family court last October recognized as Japanese two Filipinos whose fathers' names were not confirmed in Japan's family registry system.
The breakthrough came after the court also granted Japanese nationality in February 2006 to two Filipina sisters whose father's records were kept in the registry system.
Still, only seven including the four have been recognized as Japanese among 84 people who have petitioned for family registry. There are a total of 160 second-generation Japanese-Filipinos left in the country.
The legal support center started this project in 2005, the year that marked the 60th anniversary of the war's end, and has facilitated two other such visits to Japan.
