JESUS CONTEMPRATE ALIAS CO CHII KIAT, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, VS. THE ACTING COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION, THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF THE BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION, THE MEMBERS OF T…

Appeal from the decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila
(in Civil Case No. 60384), dismissing the petition filed therein by Jesus Contemprate alias Co Chii Kiat, directed primarily against the cancellation of his
certificate of identification and his arrest and detention since 6 March 1964,
upon orders of the respondent
Acting Commissioner of Immigration.

It appears from the record and the stipulation of facts entered into
by the parties that petitioner, the “son
of Co Cue, a Chinese citizen”, arrived at the port of Manila on 8 November 1921 from Amoy,
China.  He was
issued lending Certificate of Residence No. 38898, approved by the
Bureau of Customs on 17 June 1921.  Upon
later application, petitioner was also issued Alien Registration
Certificate on 6 March 1948,
wherein his name appeared as Co Chii Kiat, born on 30 April
1908 in Amoy, China, and married to Luisa Chua.  On 13 June 1960, however, petitioner requested the immigration
authorities to cancel his certificate of residence and alien
certificate of registration on the ground that he is a Philippine citizen.   The Citizenship Evaluation Board of the Bureau
of Customs thereupon conducted an investigation of the case during which
petitioner’s alleged parents, Juan Contemprate and Prisca Corres, Natividad Tiosen, and petitioner
himself testified, and certain documentary evidence were presented.  On 30 August 1960, Associate Commissioner Felix Talabis
issued an order declaring petitioner as “the legitimate
child of Filipino parents”, and consequently directed the cancellation of his
alien registry and the issuance to him of appropriate identification certificate
showing his correct status.

On 10 and 11 August 1961, four persons, allegedly named Carlos, Domingo, Gregorio, and Paquito
Contemprate,^[1] claiming to be children of petitioner, arrived in Manila.  During the investigation of said persons
conducted by the Board of Special Inquiry of the Immigration Bureau, petitioner
affirmed under oath that the former were his children.  Immigration Officer Lamberto
Almeda, however,
having noted discrepancies in the record which allegedly were not duly considered by the Citizenship Evaluation Board,
recommended to the Commissioner of Immigration the reinvestigation of
petitioner’s case.  On 18 August 1961, the Commissioner
ordered such reinvestigation.  Upon the
other hand, on the basis of the evidence submitted by claimants Carlos,
Domingo, Gregorio and Paquito Contemprate,
the Board of Special Inquiry, on 20
September 1961, allowed their admission into the country under the
status claimed.

On 3 June 1962, lmmigration
Officers Lamberto Almeda
and Gavino M. Yapchiongco,
Jr., submitted to the Commissioner of Immigration an ex-parte
report to the effect that fraud and an impostor”; that he is not the Jesus
Contemprate referred to and described as the
legitimate son a Juan Contemprate and
Prisca
Corres in the baptismal certification issued by the
parish priest of San Fernando, Masbate; that the
real Jesus Contemprate was then actually living in Bobok, Mountain
Province; that petitioner Go
Chit Kiat merely assumed the identity of the real
Jesus Contemprate, whose birth and parentage he must
have learned only from his common-law
wife, Natividad Tiosen.

Acting upon said report, the Board of Commissioners reviewed motu proprio the
decision of the Special Board of Inquiry in the cases of Carlos, Paquito, Domingo and Gregorio Contemprate
(I. C. Nos. 61-2966-C, 61-2967-C, 61-2974-C, and 61-2965-C), and on 20 June
1962 ruled for the exclusion of the latter on the grounds (1) that the alleged filiation of applicants to Jesus Contemprate
alias Co Chii Kiat had not
been satisfactorily established, and (2) that even assuming that the applicants
were his children, they cannot derive Philippine citizenship from Co Chii Kiat, who claimed to be born
as Jesus Contemprate, the latter having been found to
be a fraud and an impostor.  The Com­missioner
of Immigration likewise revoked the 30
August 1960 order of Associate Commissioner Talabis
declaring Co Chii Kiat,
alias Jesus Contemprate, a citizen of the Philippines,
and directed the cancella­tion of the identification certificate issued to the
latter on 7 September 1960,
and for his registration under the Alien Registration Act.  On the same day, 20 June 1962, the
Commissioner of Immigration issued a warrant for the arrest of Co Chii Kiat, alias Jesus Contemprate, to answer deportation charges, for having
knowingly misrepresented himself as a Filipino citizen born of Filipino parents
in 1911 in San Fernando, Masbate, during the
investigation of the admission cases of Carlos, Paquito,
Domingo and Gregorio Contemprate, such false
statements and misrepresentation resulting in his alleged sons being admitted
and do­cumented as Filipino citizens. 
The Commissioner of Immigration similarly issued a warrant for the
exclusion of Carlos, Paquito, Domingo and Gregorio Contemprate.

On 29 March 1965,
Jesus Contemprate, alias Co Chii
Kiat, commenced in the Court of First Instance of
Manila a certiorari proceeding (Civil Case No. 60384) to nullify the
aforementioned orders of the Commissioner and to restrain the hearing of the
exclusion or deportation charges against him. 
On 3 March 1966, the
lower court rendered decision dismissing the petition and sustaining the
disputed orders of the Immigration Commissioner, upon the finding that the
petitioner (appellant herein) is a fraud and an impostor, who had misrepresented
himself as Jesus Contemprate, when the real person by
that name is actually living and may be found in Baguio (Mountain
Province).  It was also ruled that a writ of certiorari
is not the proper remedy in the case, a habeas corpus proceeding or
recourse to administrative officials being more appropriate.

Coming to this Court by way of the present appeal,^[2]
petitioner-appellant now contends that for the court a quo to find that
he is a fraud and an impostor, based merely on the ex-parte
report of certain immigra­tion officers and rendered without notice and hearing
on him, constitutes a deprivation of his liberty without due process of law.

There is no merit in this contention of appellant.  For aside from the report adverted to, the
records of the case which the trial judge must have duly considered in reaching
the disputed, judgment, contain other, evidence supporting the same.  Thus, attached to the records is a sworn
statement of one Jesus Contemprate an employee of a mining company in Mountain Province, given to immigration officers
Almeda and Yapchiongco,
Jr., on 31 May 1962, to the effect that he is the son of Juan Contemprate and Prisca Corres, born in 1911 at San Fernando, Masbate;
that his parents have no other son named Jesus but he; that he had previously
met appellant (whose picture was shown to him), who was introduced to him by
his former common-law wife, Natividad Tiosen, as Miguel Co.^[3]
There is also the statement under oath of Marcelino Contemprate, a businessman of Baguio
City, that his parents are Juan Contemprate and Prisca Corres of Buenavista, San Fernando, Masbate;
that he has a brother named Jesus who was then working as a policeman in the Benguet Consolidated Mines in Mountain Province.  Shown a picture of appellant, this declarant denied that the person pictured is his brother
Jesus; that there could be no other Jesus Contemprate,
son of Juan Contemprate and Prisca
Corres of San Fernando,
Masbate, than his
abovementioned brother.^[4]
Besides these positive and unrebutted declarations
that appellant is not the Jesus Contemprate that he
represents himself to be, there are certain discrepancies in the record that
justify the denial of appellant’s petition in the court below.  First, during the investigation of
appellant’s claim conducted by the Citizenship Evalua­tion Board on 27 July
1960, appellant declared that he was recognized by, and got reunited with, his
“real” parents (meaning the Contemprates)
in 1951^[5],
changing it later to 1950^[6];
whereas witness Juan Contemprate stated that he and his
wife met the appellant in 1956,or Just 4 years before
that hearing.^[7]
Again, appellant alleged that it was in
1949, in China,
when he was informed for the first time by his Chinese foster mother that his parents were Juan Contemprate and Prisca Corres who were still alive and residing at Buenavista, San Fernando,
Masbate, in the Philippines.^[8]
And yet, according to Juan Contemprate and Prisca Corres, they had never
communicated with nor heard from appellant’s father, Co
Cue, or from appellant himself, ever since the latter, at age four months, was
allegedly brought to China
by said Co Cue.^[9] These discrepancies we consider
significant, because appellant’s recital of the supposed circumstances
surrounding his assumption of the name Jesus Contemprate
appears to be founded on a phenomenal Series
of coincidences.  Thus, he would
like us to believe that in 1950, upon being informed by his Chinese parents
that his real parentage is Filipino,
with­out prior verification thereof, he had stopped renewing his alien registration
because he considered himself already a Filipino. But what is noteworthy is
that it was also in 1950 when appellant met Natividad
Tiosen,^[10]
who “happened” to know the alleged parents of appellant, Juan Contemprate and Prisca Corres.  It was Tiosen who accompanied appellant to meet the couple in Masbate. 
The web of circumstances thus worked out is much too coincidental to be
true and is rendered vul­nerable
by the fact that Natividad Tiose
had cohabited for about seven years with, and had two children by, the man who
bears the name of Jesus Contemprate, and is the son
of Juan Contemprate and Prisca
Corres, and who, in 1965, was working for a mining
company in Mountain Province.

Another point that deserves notice is the improper attitude
appellant has towards Philippine laws and authorities.  For example, although the duly constituted
government of the Philippines
restarted functioning in 1945, it was only in 1946 that appellant registered as
an alien and was issued an alien registration certificate.^[11]
Then, without proper order from government authorities, and allegedly only upon
being informed by his Chinese mother that his real parents were Filipinos, he
just stopped renewing his alien registration in 1950.  Yet he did not take any steps to secure recognition
of his alleged Philippine citizenship until ten years later, on 13 June 1960, when he requested the
Immigration Commissioner to cancel his alien certificate of registration.  In other words, if he were to be believed,
appellant, for a period of 10 years, was passing himself off as a Filipino even
without previous appropriate verification of his citizenship.  To cap it all, this appellant admitted in his
1964 sworn statement (Annex 9 of the Respondent’s answer below) that the four
persons he had claimed under oath at the 1961 proceedings before the
Immigration Board of Inquiry to be his children, and who were admitted as a
result of his claim, were not really his children (Annex 9, page 3, Record,
page 8). Appellant thereby admitted his perjury
and utterly destroyed his own credibility.

Petitioner argues that the order of 30 August 1960, whereby Associate Commissioner Talabis ordered the cancellation
of his alien registration, and the correction of his status as a child
of Filipino parents, is already final
and unreviewable. 
This claim is unmeritorious, because the reinvestigation of appellant’s
case was ordered as early as 18 August 1961, within
one year from the Talabis resolution, so that the
latter did not acquire finality. 
Furthermore, the Talabis order was
obtained by fraud and misrepresentation, for which reason it was ultimately
revoked.

Petitioner also complains that
in the revocation of the Talabis order, cancelling his alien registration, the respondent
Commissioner took into account the affidavits of Jesus and Marcelino
Contemprate which were given ex parte and without notice to him.  In the first place, he has not shown that the
testimony of said witnesses is untrue; nor had he asked from the Immigration
authorities an opportunity to examine them. 
In the second place, even without such testimony, as we have shown,
there are on record sufficient circumstances unfavorable to this peti­tioner to justify respondent’s
conclusion that he is not what he pretends to be, and that the order this petitioner
complains of had the support of substantial evidence.  Anyway, petitioner will still have
opportunity to rebut the evidence against him at the hearings on whether he
should be deported or not.

However, we must sustain appellant’s plea against the correctness
and propriety of the warrant of arrest issued in this case, to secure the
presence of said appellant in the hearing of the charges against him for
alleged violation of Section 37 (a) (9) in relation to Section 45(f) of the
Philippine Immigration Act.  The rule now
established in this jurisdiction circumscribes the authority to issue the same
only to judges, where the purpose of the warrant is merely the determination of
the existence of probable cause in a given case,^[12]
with the power of the Immigration Commissioner to issue similar warrants being
confined to those necessary for
the execution of a final deportation order.^[13]
The Immigration authorities, on the other hand, cannot protest that the ruling
renders them helpless or ineffective in securing attendance before them of
person charged of violation of the laws on immigration.   For their recourse has been amply provided
when this Court said:

“We see no reason why the cautionary bond requirement of the
1947 Executive Order No. 69 of President Roxas should
not apply to deportation proceedings initiated by the Immigration Commissioners, considering the Identity of ends
sought to be served.  Such notice and bonds should suffice to ensure the subject’s appearance at the
hearings, without prejudice to more drastic measures in case of
recalcitrant respondents. But as long as the illegal entry or offense of the
respondents Calacdays has not yet been
established and their expulsion finally decided upon, their arrest upon
administrative warrants violates the
provisions of our Bill of Rights.  The constitutional
guarantees of individual liberty must be liberally construed and applied
if we are to enjoy the blessings of a regime of justice, liberty and
democracy that the Philippines Constitution
sought to secure and consolidate.”^[14]

FOR THE FOREGOING CONSIDERATIONS, the de­cision of the
court a quo is hereby modified, being reversed insofar as it denies
issuance of a writ of certiorari against the warrant for the arrest of
appellant, issued by the appellee Commissioner of
Immigration, which is declared null and void. 
This shall be without prejudice to petitioner’s being required to
furnish such reasonable bond as the Commissioner of Immigration may fix, to
guarantee this appellant’s appearance at the hearings for his deportation, and
at all other administrative proceedings wherein his right to stay in the
Philippines is to be passed upon.  In all
other respects, the appealed judgment is affirmed.  No costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Makalintal, Zaldivar, Ruiz
Castro, Fernando, Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ.,
concur.

Villamor and Makasiar, JJ.,
no part.

^[1]
Carlos was said to have been born on 20
November 1934; Domingo, on 2
January 1936; and Paquito and Gregorio
allegedly were twins, born on 2
October 1949 (page 30, CFI Record).

^[2]
The appeal was originally filed in the Court of Appeals, but said tribunal, in
its resolution of 12 January 1968,
certified the same to us for proper determination, on the ground that only
questions of law are involved herein.

^[3]
Pages 37-39, CFI, Record.

^[4]
Pages 33-35, id.

^[5]
Pages 45, 86-87, CFI Record.

^[6]
Page 91, id.

^[7]
Page 82, id.

^[8]
Page 86, id.

^[9]
Pages 83, 84, id.

^[10]
Page 90, id.

^[11]
Stipulation, Nos. 3 and 5, page 132, CFI
Record.

^[12]
Vivo vs. Montesa, L-24576, 29 July 1968, 24 SCRA155, citing Qua Chee Gan vs. Deportation Board, L-20290, 30 Sept. 1963, 9 SCRA 27.

^[13]
Morano vs. Vivo, L-22196, 30 June 1967, 20 SCRA 562.

^[14]
Vivo vs. Montesa, supra.