GO KIONG OCHURA AND GO ZUI OCHURA, PETITIONERS-APPELLEES, VS. COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION AND DEPORTATION OFFICER, BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION, RESPONDENTS-APPELLANTS.

Appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila
(Civil Case No. 41676) declaring petitioners to be Filipino citizens and
restraining the respondents-appellants Commissioner of Immigration and the
Deportation Officer of the Bureau of Immigration, from carrying out a warrant
for the exclusion of petitioners-appellees.

It is of record that on May
28, 1958, appellees herein, Go Kiong Ochura and Go Zui Ochura, arrived in manila
from Hongkong, and sought admission as legitimate
sons of Isaac Ochura and his wife Chua Suy, who had been recognized by the Department of Justice
to be Filipino citizens.  Applicants for
admission were investigated by a Board of Special Inquiry of the Immigration
Bureau, and they submitted their evidence to the Board.  After the proceedings closed the Board, by
majority vote, decreed the admission of applicants as Filipino citizens.

The Board of Immigration Commissioners reviewed the case and on
December 5, 1958, unanimously reversed the decision of the Board of Special Inquiry;
held that “there is an absolute lack of evidence to establish the filiation of applicants to their alleged parents,” in
view of the contradictions and discrepancies in the evidence submitted.  Hence, applicants were ordered excluded from
the country (Exh. I, Petition Annex A).

Applicants for admission moved for reconsideration and rehearing
on December 15, 1958, seeking to introduce additional and new evidence in
support of their claims; and were granted bail for their provisional release (Exhs. 2 and 3).

After rehearing the case, the Board of Special Inquiry, in a
supplemental decision, with one member again dissenting, reaffirmed the
findings of their original decision; and upon review once more, the
Commissioners of Immigration on July 10, 1959 reaffirmed their original
decision of exclusion without any modification other than to order the
exclusion of both the Ochura applicants to he carried
out immediately (Exh. K, Petition Annex B).

The applicants then instituted on October 13, 1959 these proceedings in the court below,
first in an action to declare them as Filipino citizens; and having secured a
preliminary writ of injunction, subsequently amended the petition into one for
prohibition and mandamus with
preliminary injunction on October 23,
1932.  After responsive
pleading by the immigration authorities, the case was heard.  Thereafter, the Court of First Instance, by
decision of May 10, 1963, found that the filiation of
petitioners had been proved by preponderance of evidence, because the decisions
of the Board of Commissioners are only based on contradictions found in the
petitioners’ written statements given before a Consul of the Philippines in Hongkong and those given before the Board of special
Inquiry and issued the writs applied for, restraining execution of the warrants
of exclusion.  Thereupon, the respondents
appealed to this Court.

For proper evaluation of the appealed decision, it is fitting to
set here at length the findings of the Board of Immigration Commissioners.

In their original decision the Board said:

“The following facts have neither been contro­verted
nor satisfactorily explained.  In the ap­plication for alien registration, Form I of ACR No.
A-186787, issued to Ysaac Ochura
on Decem­ber 26, 1950, it appears that the latter refused to name his children,
and so none was listed, while in a similar application of his wife, Go Chua Suy, dated July 27, 1955, only Go An ap­pears therein as
her child with Isaac Ochura.

“The discrepancies in their testimonies as to small matters and the
intimate facts of their lives are so gross and apparent that even the most
gullible cannot avoid the conclusion that applicants’ claim of relationship to
their alleged parents and consequently, their alleged citizenship, is far
removed from the truth.

“Applicants both claim having lived in the same house in China.  At the Philippine Consulate in Hongkong, Go Zui Ochura testified that said house consisted of 14 rooms,
including the visitor’s room.  Go Kiong Ochura, in the same investigation, however, alleged that the same house has six
rooms and one visitor’s room.  Then,
completely contradicting his previous testimony, Go Zui
Ochura before the Board of Special Inquiry declared
that their house in China
has four rooms upstairs and four rooms down­stairs, or a total of eight
rooms.  Again at the Philippine Consulate
in Hongkong, Go Zui
testified that his brother Go Kong did not attend school in China.  Go Kong himself,
however, claimed to have finished the intermediate grades in Chingkang, China.  Before the Board of Special Inquiry, Go Kion testified that their witness Chua Siong
Pek,
was their nearest neighbor and that his house was adjoining that of the
applicants.  Contrariwise, at the Philip­pine
Consulate, Go Zui asserted that said house is nine or
ten houses away from their own.

“At the preliminary investigation conducted by the Immigrant
Inspector upon their arrival, ap­plicants testified that their alleged mother,
Go Chua Suy, married twice; that the applicants are
children of her second marriage, Go Chiong Ochura, being the eldest with the alias name of Antonio
Go.  At the Board of Special Inquiry’s
investigation, however, Go Kiong declared that he is
the oldest, followed by Go Chion and the youngest is
Go Zui.  To
complicate matters further, Isaac Ochura, the alleged
father, declared in the same investigation that Go Kiong
and Go Chiong Ochura are
twins, and consequently, are of the same age. 
Then, on page 22 of the BSI investigation, applicant Go Kiong testified that it was their father who married twice,
that Go Chiong has no alias name, and that Antonio Go
is the alias of his half-brother, Go An.

“No probative value can be given by this Board to the NBI
blood test finding of the possible relationship between applicants and their
alleged parents, the same being inconclusive.

“In view of the foregoing, this Board holds that applicants Go
Kiong Ochura and Go Zui Ochura are not Philippine
citizens and are hereby ordered excluded from the country.”

After examining the evidence produced at the rehearing, the Board
of Commissioners reaffirmed its original decision, saying:

“As prayed for in the present petition, we granted it,
prompted by the desire to afford them all the opportunities to prove their
cause.  In so granting, we were then of
the impression that they would present newly discovered evidence, only to
discover and observe now that petitioners, in their efforts to extricate
themselves from the quagmire of incredibilities and
inconsistencies in which they found themselves enmeshed after the original
hearing, adduced during the rehearing not newly discovered but cumulative
evidence in the form of testimonies of recalled witnesses and testimonies,
dubbed additional evidence, of new witnesses named Go Guan and Lim Heng, all intended to make credible the incredibles.  But, deeply immersed in it
before in the same they are deeper now. 
To illustrate this latter observation, does it now sound incredible that
witness Go Guan, absent from China
many years ago, could tell with exactitude that spouses Isaac Ochura and Go Chua Suy were
married in 1933?  Too, is it not
incredible that the same witness Go Guan who, being in the Philippines, away
from China, from the very village of Tang Po where petitioners were allegedly
born in and around the years they were supposedly born, could have personally
known and remembered with certitude, even waxing categorical, that Go Kiong Ochura and Go Zui Ochura were born in 1934 and
1936, respectively?  Bear in mind that
said witness is now 51 years old and is testifying on matters not of his own
intimate concern and which allegedly happened many many
years ago.  Also, is it not highly
incredible that petitioners and said witness, professing intimate
acquaintanceship with each other because they had been for years front door
neighbors in their village in China, both petitioners did not and could not
tell the witness’ name when they were queried in the Philippine Consulate at Hongkong as to the names of those they knew in the
Philippines who could testify for them? 
(See Exhibit “I – Rehearing” and Exhibit “II –
Rehearing”.) And, yet both know now the name of witnesses Go Guan and Lim Heng.  Rehearsed and
parroted but rendered nil by the weight of their own inherent incredibility,
their testimonies are here given no probative value.

“Premises considered, we are
constrained to view again with disfavor their claim.  Therefore, let our original decision and
order stand un­modified, with the addendum that our previous order of exclusion
be now carried out and executed immediately.”

We agree with appellants immigration
officers that the decision of the Court of First Instance, now under appeal,
can not be sustained.  It must be
remembered that the Commissioners of Immigration refused the entry sought by
herein appellants on the basis that they had failed to establish satisfactorily
that they were the children of their supposed parents Isaac Ochura
and Chua Suy. 
That finding was one of fact which the Court of First Instance overruled
as contrary to the preponderance of evidence. 
The ruling violated the fundamental tenet in judicial review that
executive decisions are conclusive on questions of fact and not subject to
review by the courts in the absence of fraud, imposition or mistake other
than error of judgment in estimating the value or effect of evidence,
regardless of whether or not it is consistent with the preponderance of
evidence, so long as there is some evidence upon which the finding in
question could be made (Ortua vs. Singson
Encarnacion, 59 Phil. 440; Julian vs. Apostol, 52 Phil. 422).

With particular reference to immigration cases, this Court has
long, repeatedly and invariably applied the same criterion, and held that the
judicial review must predicated upon a showing of abuse of authority, abuse of
discretion or error in the application of the law:  Tan Beko vs.
Insular Collector of Customs, 26 Phil. 254; Flores Tan vs. Collector of
Customs, 33 Phil. 205; Guevarra vs. Collector of
Customs, 34 Phil. 394; Molden vs. Collector of
Customs, 34 Phil. 493; Ty Buan
vs. Collector of Customs, 34 Phil. 937; Cheng Tao Liap
vs. Collector of Customs, 55 Phil. 894; Lao Hian vs.
Collector of Customs, 60 Phil. 556.

The present decision of the court a quo, like that
in Manabat vs. De la Cruz, L-11228, April 30, 1958,
assumed that the case of petitioners-appellees is to
be decided on the basis of preponderance of evidence as if it were an ordinary
civil action.  We pointed out in the Manabat case that such an assumption is totally erroneous, because
a case of this nature –

“hinges, not
on whether the findings of appellants herein (immigration authorities) are
supported by the evidence but on whether they had acted without jurisdiction,
or so abused their discretion as to exceed their jurisdiction.  This is specially
true in immigration cases, in which it is well settled, by a long line of
decisions, that courts should not disturb the conclusions of fact of
immigration authorities, in matters which are within their competence, whenever
there is ‘some’ evidence in support of such conclusions.  (Vicente Gñilo vs.
Collector of Customs, 32 Phil., 100; Law Sing vs. Collector of Customs, 27
Phil., 491; Ty Buan vs.
Collector of Customs, 34 Phil., 937; Cheng Ka Hee vs.
Collector of Customs, 56 Phil., 622; Ortua vs. Singson Encarnacion, 59 Phil.,
440.)”

While the Manabat case was brought to
Court on certiorari, and the Ochuras here prayed for prohibition and mandamus, the governing principles are
the same.  Only errors of law, arbitrariness
or grave abuse of discretion would authorize the disregard of the factual
findings of the Board of Immigration Commissioners, and it is to be hoped that
in the future, we will be spared the need of reiterating such a well
established doctrine.

That the decision of appellant Commissioners rested mainly on
contradictions of the witnesses for the applicants for entry does not negate
the fact that there is substantial evidence to support their conclusions, and
that the Court below grievously erred in disregarding the same.  (cf. Manabat vs. De
la Cruz, ante.)

Another error committed by the Court a quo lies in
its having disregarded the fact that appellees herein
failed to exhaust their administrative remedies, in failing to appeal the
decision of the immigration commissioners to the Secretary of Justice, as ruled
by this Court in Soriano vs. Galang,
L-14323, April 29, 1960 and Board of Commissioners vs. Domingo, L-21274, July
31, 1963.

WHEREFORE, the decision under appeal is reversed, and the appellees‘ action for prohibition and mandamus is ordered dismissed. 
Costs against petitioners-appellees
Ochura.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Makalintal, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar, Sanchez, Castro, Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.