Immigration revives case versus Alvarado

The Bureau of Immigration re-opened yesterday the deportation case against professional cager Sonny Alvarado following recent reports questioning the Filipino citizenship of his mother Ana Marie de la Cruz.

Immigration commissioner Rufus B. Rodriguez has summoned Alvarado to appear before the BI board of commissioners at 11 a.m. on Monday to shed light on the authenticity of his mother's birth certificate.

The board earlier dismissed the deportation case against Alvarado last January, but Rodriguez said the latest findings necessitated the revival of the case against the Tanduay player.

The task force, headed by Rogelio D. Gevero, Jr. in a memorandum to Rodriguez, reported that Alvarado submitted two birth certificates of his mother, Ana Marie de la Cruz Alvarado.

One of the certificates was under Register No. 2939 (i46) and the other under Register No. 3696 (i48).

Upon inquiry with the City Civil Registrar of Manila, the BI Task Force found out that the characters enclosed in parentheses refer to the year of birth of the person to whom the certificate was issued. The issuance of two certificates only means Alvarado's mother had been born or registered twice, the Task Force said.

Verification with the National Statistics Office also revealed that it has no record of the alleged birth of Alvarado's mother, either on Sept. 5, 1946 or Sept. 5, 1948.

Leticia B. Vila, Registration Officer I of the Manila civil registrar also said Ms. Alvarado has no record in its 1946-1948 files.

The task force said it also investigated the two birth certificates of Alvarado's mother to determine why the latter had two different birth register numbers.

It then found out that Register No. 2939 (i46) was assigned to one Erlinda Celeste, who was born on September 5, 1946, while Register No. 3696 (i48) was issued to one Danilo Alfonso, born on September 7, 1948.

None of the register numbers was issued to Alvarado's mother, according to Gloria C. Pagdilao, Manila city civil registrar.