BI orders deportation

Tanduay cager Earl Sonny Alvarado was ordered deported yesterday by the Bureau of Immigration which found him guilty of faking his mother's certificate to back his claim to Philippine citizenship.

The immigration board told Alvarado to leave the country within 15 days after which the deportation order against him shall become final and executory.

Immigration commissioner Rufus Rodriguez, who presided at the board hearing, also said Alvarado will be blacklisted and forever barred from returning to the Philippines for being an undesirable alien.

Alvarado was ordered deported after his lawyer Jose Redillas failed to present any witness or documentary evidence to dispute the bureau's findings that his mother, Ana Marie dela Cruz Alvarado, was not born in the Philippines.

The board also denied a motion filed by Redillas asking for the dismissal of the deportation case for insufficiency of evidence.

Rodriguez said the motion was dismissed for lack of merit as the bureau has already gathered substantial evidence to establish Alvarado's guilt on charges that he faked his mother's birth certificates to support his application for recognition as a Filipino citizen.

He explained that unlike in criminal cases, proof beyond reasonable doubt is no longer necessary to establish a respondent's guilt in administrative cases such as a summary deportation proceeding.

Legal counsels of Basic Holdings Corp., owner of the Tanduay Rhum franchise in the PBA, said they will exhaust all measures to stop Alvarado's deportation.

Atty. Walter Young said they will appeal Alvarado's case with the Department of Justice or the Office of the President.

Investigation found that Alvarado submitted two birth certificates of his mother, showing she was born in Manila on Sept. 5, 1946 and Sept. 5, 1948, both of which were declared as fake by the Manila civil registrar and are unregistered with the National Statistics Office.

He said mere preponderance of evidence is already sufficient to declare a respondent guilty of an offense in administrative proceedings.