MANILA, 10 October 2003 — The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has formally lodged deportation proceedings against Graham Chua Lim, the controversial secretary-general of the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), for allegedly misrepresenting himself as a Filipino despite his being a Chinese citizen.
The case was filed on the same day Lim’s lawyers also withdrew their request from the Office of the Solicitor General to formally declare their client as Filipino citizen.
According to BI Acting Commissioner Arthel Caronongan, charges of violating the Philippine immigration act were already filed by the bureau’s prosecutors against Lim based on initial findings that he knowingly falsified his Filipino citizenship.
Coronongan said the BI’s prosecutors charged the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) commissioner of violating the Philippine Immigration Act when he fraudulently acquired a Philippine passport.
Lim, Coronongan disclosed, was charged with violating Sections 52 and 45 of the Philippine immigration act which subject to summary deportation aliens who are undesirable and who misrepresented themselves as Filipinos.
But Caronongan maintained Lim will be afforded due process and opportunity to defend himself in the deportation hearings before his case is resolved by the BI board of commissioners. Lim, however, has snubbed previous BI hearings with only his lawyers representing him.
Based on BI records, Lim was born on Feb. 7, 1957 in Manila to Chinese parents and that he is registered with the BI as a native-born Chinese national.
According to BI special prosecutor Arvin Santos, who investigated the complaint and filed the charges against Lim, the latter remains a Chinese citizens because his petition for naturalization before the Manila regional trial court was dismissed on Feb. 8, 1995.
Santos added that a similar petition for admission as a citizen of the Philippines that Lim had filed with the special committee on naturalization of the Office of the Solicitor General is still pending and has not yet been approved. Investigators said Lim secured a Philippine passport through fraudulent means and the passport was used from 1993 up to the present.
He used the Philippine passport mostly in trips involving the BAP and has always presented himself as a Filipino citizen.
Lim has not used his passport since the case was filed by former BAP secretary general Emmanuel Juan Perez de Tagle and referee Liberato Valenzuela.
De Tagle and Valenzuela filed voluminous documents to prove that the BAP chief was a Chinese national misrepresenting himself as a Filipino.
Lim claimed he is a Filipino at heart although failing to explain the presence of documents that attest to his fraudulent acquisition of a Philippine passport and his blatant mockery of Philippine Immigration laws.
Lim stayed in the country when the Philippine team’s defense of the Southeast Asian Basketball Association (SEABA) crown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the team’s disastrous 15th place finish in the recent Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) Men’s Championships in Harbin, China.
Lim, a known organizer of Chinese community basketball leagues, was a key figure when a group of digruntled basketball officials ousted then BAP president Freddie Jalasco.
His group succeeded in taking the BAP stronghold from the group headed by Lito Puyat through the aid of then Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) president Carl riChing Mengk.
Lim, through his lawyer, Bonifacio Alentajan, had filed his counter-affidavit last July 23, in which he urged the BI to dismiss what he calls a “purely nuisance case” for lack of merit.
In that counter-affidavit, Alentajan said there was no case, citing the “five-year prescription” in the deportation of an “alien who enters the Philippines with false and misleading statements.”
Meanwhile, in a letter to Liberato Valenzuela, one of the complainants, dated July 17, 2003, DFA Office of the Consular Affairs Passport Division director Bernardita Catalla said her office “is presently conducting an investigation on the alleged fraud committed by Mr. Graham Chua Lim in his application for Philippine passport.”
The DFA investigation stemmed from Valenzuela’s complaint that Lim had allegedly faked his way into obtaining a Philippine passport despite allegedly remaining a Chinese citizen since his birth on Feb, 7, 1957 to Chinese parents How Ang Lim and Mary Chua.
Although a Philippine-born alien, Lim allegedly only sought Filipino citizenship on March 17, 1994 but did not pursue his own petition. Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 51 dismissed Lim’s plea for Filipino citizenship the following year for Lim’s apparent lack of interest.
But while Lim was petitioning for naturalization, he had already obtained a Philippine passport since 1991 while allegedly maintaining his Chinese citizenship as presented by Valenzuela in documents submitted to both the DFA and the Immigration, which is also looking into the possible deportation of Lim.
The DFA, according to Catalla, is also coordinating with the BI and had inquired on the immigration status of Lim.
Valenzuela, who filed both cases with Tito Tagle, Lim’s former deputy in the BAP, said they have inquired about Lim’s citizenship status “to correct his way of treatment of genuine Filipinos whom Lim displaced in the BAP.”
Lim has been appointed BAP secretary general despite allegations by the referees and other former BAP officials that he is not a Filipino citizen.
He has been asked to appear before the Bureau of Immigration to answer charges that he “misrepresented” himself as a Filipino in several trips abroad while holding Chinese citizenship.
