Japan deports Pinoy couple
By Rudy Santos Updated April 15, 2009 12:00 AM
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?ar ... goryId=202MANILA, Philippines - For over 15 years, Filipino couple Arlan and Sarah Calderon managed to avoid being arrested by Japanese immigration authorities. They had arrived in Japan in 1993 using fake Japanese passports.
Arlan, 36, and Sarah, 38, thought they could hide from the law forever, but their status was eventually discovered by Japanese immigration authorities. On Monday night the Calderons were deported from Japan, leaving their 13-year-old daughter behind in an immigration row that has drawn wide public sympathy for the family.
Arlan and Sarah had pleaded to be allowed to stay in the country so their Japan-born daughter Noriko could finish her schooling.
The government has allowed Noriko to stay on humanitarian grounds but warned the family several weeks ago it would deport all three unless the parents agreed to leave voluntarily.
In an interview with reporters at the NAIA airport, the couple said they are still hoping to go back to Japan to be with their only child, whom they left in the care of a relative.
Arlan and Sarah are back in Tondo, Manila where they are listed as residents.
The couple said the first order of the day for them is to find jobs to tide them over until they could apply for visitor’s visas; that is, if the Japanese government will allow them to re-enter the country.
Arlan said their names were not included in the blacklist.
Noriko is now in second year junior high school in Saitama Prefecture in the Tokyo area where they used to reside.
“I feel sad,” Noriko earlier told reporters at their home in Warabi, north of Tokyo.
“I won’t have delicious food made by my mother anymore. I feel full of uncertainty,” said Noriko, who saw her parents off at the Narita airport last Monday, surrounded by a crowd of reporters, public broadcaster NHK said.
Noriko, who speaks only Japanese, was left in the care of Calderon’s sister-in-law who is married to a Japanese businessman. Noriko is allowed to stay in Japan on a special residence visa.
Arlan said they were caught by surprise when Japanese police came to their house and arrested them.
“One day, three Japanese police came to our house to tell us that we’re being arrested and questioned for overstaying,” Arlan said in Tagalog.
He could barely speak English but is in fluent Nihongo.
Arlan not only speaks Japanese fluently, but even looks Japanese, with slanted eyes, fair complexion, crewcut hair and bushy eyebrows.
He did not give details on how they were discovered, but discounted the possibility that they were turned in by a fellow Pinoy in Japan.
“Nobody snitched on us,” he said, attributing their being found out more to the efficiency of the Japanese authorities.
The couple came to Japan in 1993 to seek greener pastures, where Sarah initially sold various merchandise with the help of relatives and Arlan worked in a construction company.
When asked why her daughter never learned to speak Tagalog, Arlan said they tried to teach her but their daughter opted to speak Japanese.
“We tried to teach her our language but she would have none of it. And when she goes out of the house, all of her friends and classmates are Japanese,” Arlan said.
Arlan and Sarah said they will eventually live in Japan when Noriko turns 16 or 18, but are not sure if their daughter could apply to be a naturalized Japanese.
In case Noriko becomes a naturalized Japanese, they hope she would petition the Japanese government to let them stay in Japan permanently.
The case has drawn intense media coverage in Japan, and more than 20,000 people signed a petition asking the government to allow all three to stay. The case has also attracted the attention of Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council, which has asked Japan for information about it. But Justice Minister Eisuke Mori, in charge of immigration matters, has said the government had done its utmost to help the family.
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