Two stateless sisters in their 80s, of Japanese descent in the Philippines, will restore their Japanese citizenships, having lost them due to turmoil after World War II, recent court documents showed.
Esperanza Morine Cabrillos, 86, and Lydia Morine Galalan, 84, were granted permission by the Naha Family Court in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture this month to establish a new family register in the country.
Esperanza and Lydia, who live on the remote island of Linapacan, have received support from a Tokyo-based group and have also met with the consul general of the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines.
The court confirmed that their father was a Japanese citizen who immigrated to the Philippines from Okinawa to become a fisherman before the war. He married a Filipino woman in 1935 and died in the war in 1945.
The court concluded that the sisters acquired Japanese citizenship at birth based on the law at the time.
In the interview with the consul general in May, Lydia said she had long hoped to visit Japan but is concerned about her health due to high blood pressure.
The sisters have little memory of their father, but their mother told them he was Japanese from Okinawa.
There are many stateless residents of Japanese descent in the Philippines. Most of them are offspring of Japanese fathers who moved to the country, married locals and were drafted by Japan’s military after the war broke out in the Pacific in 1941.
The fathers died or were deported to Japan, with their children left behind.
The Japanese government has pledged to boost support for the offspring, but there have been cases in which they died before being allowed to acquire Japanese citizenship.
