Sonny Alvarado faces deportation

The Bureau of Immigration confirmed yesterday that Tanduay player Earl Sonny Alvarado could be held criminally for falsification of public documents and may be ordered deported for filing two different birth certificates to substantiate his claims to Filipino citizenship.

Appearing before yesterday's hearing of the bureau's board of commissioners, Alvarado's lawyer, Jose Redillas, said he presented a birth certificate during the early part of the deportation proceedings but was not aware that Alvarado submitted a different one later.

Redillas said his law firm submitted in December last year a birth certificate showing that Ana Marie Alvarado was born on Sept. 5, 1946, not the one that shows she was born on Sept. 5, 1948.

It appears that Alvarado submitted the 1948 certificate when he re-applied for recognition as Filipino citizen with the BI in January this year, Redillas told the board chaired by Immigration commissioner Rufus Rodriguez.

Alvarado, meanwhile, was ordered by the board to explain why he should not be cited for contempt for failing to attend the hearing which was scheduled after the bureau reopened his deportation case.

The case was revived after the bureau unearthed new pieces of evidence indicating that his mother has no Philippine birth record certified by the Manila civil registrar and the National Statistics Office.

In the same hearing, the board ordered the Fil-Am task force headed by Rogelio Gevero Jr. to verify the authenticity of the birth certificates submitted by Alvarado.

The documents appeared to have been certified also by the Manila civil registrar.

The order was issued at the request of Redillas who pointed out that the certifications obtained by the task force stating that Ms. Alvarado has no birth record conflicted with the birth certificates submitted by the player and certified as true copies by the city civil registrar.

It was learned that Ms. Alvarado's 1946 birth certificate was certified by a certain Leticia Vila of the Manila civil registrar while her 1948 certificate was issued by Rosario Dionisio of the same office.

However, the task force also obtained a certificate from Vila stating that the city registrar has no record in its 1946 and 1948 files of Ms. Alvarado's birth in the Philippines.

The task force also obtained a certification from Gloria Pagdilao, the Manila civil registrar, that the birth register numbers submitted by Alvarado was assigned to one Erlinda Celeste, who was born on Sept. 5, 1946, and to one Danilo Alfonso, who was born on Sept. 7, 1948. None of the register numbers was issued to Alvarado's mother, said Pagdilao

Rodriguez said the board has summoned Celeste, maiden name of Erlinda Vergara, the executive secretary of the Philippine Basketball Association, to appear in the next hearing on Thursday to explain why her birth registry number was used by Ms. Alvarado. Vergara has been preventively suspended by PBA commissioner Jun Bernardino after her name was linked in Alvarado's case. -