Philippines “Residual Japanese” UNHCR's First Report Calling Government to Resolve

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) published the first report containing a survey of people left unnational in the Philippines as so-called "residual Japanese" in the postwar turmoil, and the Government of Japan We are calling on the Philippine side to work on a solution.

Before the Pacific War, about 30,000 Japanese people moved to the Philippines, and the turmoil after the war left many children with Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers.

Many of them could not acquire any nationality because they did not have the documents to prove that their father was Japanese to acquire Japanese nationality or exceeded the age limit for acquiring Philippine nationality. I remained a nationality.

UNHCR has set a goal of eliminating stateless people by 2024 and released its first report on the 27th, which included a survey of so-called "residual Japanese" in the Philippines.

According to this, more than 3,800 remaining Japanese have been confirmed so far, of which about 900 are still living stateless.

According to the report, Japan has not signed an international treaty to reduce statelessness, and there is no law to define statelessness, making it difficult for remaining Japanese to acquire Japanese nationality. I'm pointing out.

On that basis, assuming that the average age of the remaining Japanese has reached 81 years old, it is necessary to take immediate action, and a joint committee with the Philippine government will be set up for the Japanese government to work on further investigation and resolution. I am calling.

Residual Japanese who are aging

According to a survey by Japanese NPOs, the average age of so-called "residual Japanese" in the Philippines has reached 81 years old, and some people die without fulfilling their desire to regain their roots as Japanese.

Julio Oshita (90), who lives on Palawan Island in the western part of the Philippines, was born to a Japanese father and a Filipino mother who traveled from Nagasaki Prefecture to the Philippines before the war.

His father was killed by a local guerrilla when Mr. Oshita was 11 years old, as the residents' opposition to the occupation of the Philippines by the former Japanese army increased.

In the 1960s, Mr. Oshita asked the Japanese embassy to search for relatives of his father who lives in Japan in order to acquire Japanese nationality with his brother, but it was not possible to identify the relatives. ..

After that, last year, with the cooperation of a Japanese NPO working to support the remaining Japanese, I finally started the procedure for acquiring nationality.

However, although a record of a man who seems to be his father traveling to the Philippines has been found, no documents have been found to prove his connection with his father, and even at the age of 90, Japanese nationality has not been obtained.

On the other hand, Mr. Oshita's childhood friend, Mr. Josefina Iwao, found a baptismal certificate with his father's name in a local church in 1988, and acquired Japanese nationality.

However, Mr. Iwao died last month at the age of 83 and was unable to fulfill his desire to find a relative for his father in Japan.

Postwar turmoil and Filipino nationality system

For a long time, the so-called "residual Japanese" could not acquire either Japanese nationality or Philippine nationality, and the background to their statelessness was the postwar turmoil and the Philippine nationality system.

Under Japanese nationality law before the war, the nationality of a child was determined based on the nationality of the father, and the parent had to submit a birth certificate to the Japanese embassy in the capital Manila and have it listed in the family register.

However, according to a Japanese NPO that supports the remaining Japanese, many parents were involved in reclamation projects in the mountainous areas and remote islands of the Philippines, so they did not submit a birth certificate. ..

Under these circumstances, the murder of parents during and after the war and the loss of documents showing the parent-child relationship made it impossible to prove that they were Japanese children.

Regarding Filipino nationality, the Constitution of the Philippines was amended in 1973 to allow children born to Filipino mothers to acquire nationality in addition to children with Filipino fathers.

However, for children born before the constitutional amendment, they had to choose their father's nationality or Filipino nationality between the ages of 21 and 24, and in principle, they could not acquire Filipino nationality after the age of 24.

According to the NPO, many of the remaining Japanese could not apply for Filipino nationality because they had already exceeded the age limit at this time and lived in hiding to avoid anti-Japanese sentiment after the war. That is.

The Japanese government

In the case of Chinese residual orphans who were forced to remain in China due to the postwar turmoil, a list of residual orphans jointly prepared by the Japanese and Chinese governments to search for Japanese relatives was submitted to the court, and then Japanese nationality. Public support has been widely provided, such as leading to the acquisition of.

On the other hand, regarding the so-called "residual Japanese" in the Philippines, there were a series of inquiries about finding relatives, so the Japanese embassy in the capital Manila and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been working to support the residual Japanese in 1995. We have commissioned an NPO to start a field survey, and so far 13 surveys have been conducted.

In 2016, in the presence of Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff, interviews with residual Japanese people began, and if there is a petition for nationality acquisition, a statement summarizing the testimony is submitted to the court as evidence.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the aim is to improve the evidence capacity of the documents prepared by the presence of public institutions in the investigation of NPOs, which will lead to the acquisition of nationality.

However, due to the lack of legislation that defines stateless persons, submitting a statement prepared in the presence of a public institution does not necessarily lead to the acquisition of nationality.

The NPO said, "For the remaining Japanese in the Philippines, public support is limited compared to the case of Chinese orphans left behind as a result of national policy, saying that parents voluntarily migrated for financial reasons. I have. "

Regarding the UNHCR report, Southeast Asia Division 2, which is in charge of the Philippines at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been conducting a fact-finding survey on the issue of nationality of Japanese remaining in the Philippines in the report. We will continue to support our efforts to verify our identities. "