Wheelchair-bound Vivian Alvarez landed early Friday in Australia, where she has become a symbol of the government’s mishandling of immigration cases after being found in May at a hospice for the dying near Manila.
The 44-year-old mother of two was deported as an illegal immigrant in July 2001, even though she is a naturalized citizen, and the mistake was covered up by immigration department officials until the media began examining her case.
Alvarez appeared at a press conference with a heavy-hitting legal team led by former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld, who said his Philippine-born client will seek millions of dollars in compensation from the government.
"You can’t give back to somebody four years of their life," Einfeld said.
"You can’t take away four years of pain, separation from her family, inadequate treatment, loneliness, lack of recreation, no freedom.
"You can’t give it back but you can make up for it as best as money can do it."
Einfeld said Alvarez was unable to speak because she was still suffering multiple injuries sustained in a road accident shortly before she was deported, including amnesia and a back injury that caused her constant pain.
"You may think, as I did when I first met her this morning, that her suffering shows on her face," Einfeld told reporters.
Einfeld, a former member of the International Commission for Jurists, said a search of international legal records had failed to uncover another case where a country had illegally deported one of its own citizens.
He said Alvarez, also known as Vivian Solon, bore no hard feelings against the Australian government and accepted an apology by Prime Minister John Howard.
"In the true tradition of heroes, Vivian does not hold a grudge against anybody," he said.
Einfeld said Alvarez did not believe her "appalling" treatment by Australian officials was racially motivated.
"Australia made a big mistake here, a tragic, serious error," he said.
"(But) it was an error of systems, it wasn’t an error of somebody hating Filipinos, or newcomers or anything of that kind, it was an error of systems and training of relevant officers."
He said his client suffers from amnesia, which was why she did not try to alert authorities to her wrongful deportation while in the Philippines.
Einfeld said Alvarez’s return to Australia had been delayed until the government agreed to have her compensation package determined by an independent arbiter, retired High Court judge Anthony Mason.
He said the government had insisted on extensive secrecy provisions surrounding the compensation package but Alvarez was seeking millions of dollars and the final deal would be made public, hopefully before year’s end.
The deal is expected to include accommodation and round-the-clock medical care. Einfeld said Alvarez needed to be examined by a battery of specialists including psychiatrists, neurologists, orthopedists and pain management experts.
He said she was looking forward to being reunited with her two Australian-based sons, a 17-year-old who lives with her estranged husband and a second boy in foster care who is believed to be nine.
A government watchdog last month described the Immigration Department’s handling of Alvarez as "catastrophic."
Her case came to light after it was revealed another Australian, German-born Cornelia Rau, was wrongfully imprisoned for 10 months as an illegal immigrant.
The immigration department has since admitted wrongfully detaining more than 200 people who were in the country legally and revealed many had received compensation packages in return for not going public with their cases.