By Rio N. Araja
PUBLIC Attorney’s Office chief Persia Acosta on Tuesday appealed to the Supreme Court to allow the release of an elderly Filipino-American, who was detained for seven years due to questions of his nationality during the tenure of then-Justice chief Leila de Lima.
“We have already submitted to the High Court’s Second Division a memorandum in compliance with its directive,” she told the Manila Standard.
Last March 13, Senior Associate Justice Marvin Leonen directed Acosta, as counsel of the 73-year-old Walter Manuel Prescott, and Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra to submit their respective memorandum after an oral argument on Prescott’s citizenship.
The PAO chief said Prescott is a son of a Filipino mother and an American father and was born and raised in the Philippines.
In February, the PAO filed a petition for review on certiorari with the Supreme Court in relation to the release of the elderly naturalized Filipino, whom the public attorney claims is actually a Filipino born in the Philippines.
Acosta lamented the “injustice” over the arrest of Prescott, who is still in detention under PAO custody without committing any criminal offense.
“WHEREFORE, premises considered, it is respectfully prayed of this Honorable Court that the Decision of the Court of Appeals promulgated on 25 June 2021 and Resolution promulgated on 15 August 2022 be REVERSED and SET ASIDE; that a DECISION be issued REVERSING the DECISION dated 24 May 2019 and the RESOLUTION dated 5 July 2019 of the Regional Trial Court of the City of Manila, Branch 10, and DIRECTING the Bureau of Immigration to permanently RELEASE petitioner Walter Manuel F. Prescott from the detention and for him to be DECLARED as a Filipino citizen,” the 35-page PAO petition read.
Acosta said Prescott, 73, was born to parents Maria Lourdes Dingcong, a Filipina, and Walter Dewey Prescott, an American, on April 10, 1950 in Manila as shown in his live birth certificate.
“Petitioner is not an overstaying and undocumented alien. He did not misrepresent factual information to acquire Philippine citizenship,” she stressed.
Sometime in February 2014, Prescott went to the Department of Foreign Affairs to renew his Philippine passport but was denied.
Then-Justice Secretary de Lima canceled Prescott’s passport and ordered his arrest.
According to PAO, Prescott became a naturalized American citizen in 2006 after working as a permanent employee at the World Bank since 1999 but regained his Filipino citizenship on Nov. 26, 2008, and took his allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines at the Philippine Embassy.
In 2010, Prescott retired from the World Bank and returned to the Philippines with his wife Maria Lourdes, who went back to the United States in 2011.
On June 6, 2012, Maria Lourdes filed a complaint with the Bureau of Immigration about Prescott’s supposed illegal acquisition of his Filipino citizenship.
The High Court’s Second Division through the clerk of court Teresita Tuazon has summoned Acosta to present Prescott in person on March 13 at 2 p.m.
The PAO chief said she will abide by whatever the decision of the Supreme Court would be.