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| Asylum seeker alleged ex-Governor Grace Padaca stabbed and threatened her |
A Filipina overstayer
who was found to have lied extensively about an alleged attempt on her life by
former Isabela governor Grace Padaca failed in her bid to challenge a decision
by the Immigration Director and the Torture Claims Appeal Board denying her
refuge in Hong Kong.
In a decision handed
down on Dec. 18, the High Court, through Registrar Allen Lee, denied an
application for leave for judicial review by Donna Mae G. Abesamis, who is
seeking non-refoulement or against being sent back home, after overstaying her
visa for three months in 2018.
The court noted several
glaring errors in the grounds cited by Abesamis, now 31 years old, in seeking
to set aside Immigration’s decision to send her back to the Philippines, most
notably her claim that ex-Governor Padaca, who is disabled and walks with
crutches, had stabbed her over a dispute.
Abesamis, who hails from Burgos,
Isabela, first came to Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper in February 2016,
and last entered on Mar 4, 2018. Her employment contract was terminated on July
31, 2018 and instead of leaving Hong Kong 14 days after this date, decided to
to overstay. She surrendered to authorities on Oct. 19, 2018 and two months
later, filed an application for non-refoulement.
To support her application, Abesamis
claimed that if she were sent back home, Padaca would harm her because the
former Isabela governor was blaming her for losing the 2015 gubernatorial
elections.
Padaca also allegedly wanted her to
return the P160,000 she was paid to act as a poll watcher in the election and
to buy the votes of her family. Abesamis said she had already used the
money to pay off a loan.
A month after Padaca supposedly lost the
election in June 2015, the politician allegedly went to Abesamis’ house in
Burgos with three goons and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give back the
money.
Padaca allegedly went with her men again
to Abesamis’ house in November 2015 and in the ensuing confrontation, one of the
men stabbed the applicant, causing a two-inch wound on her right thigh. (Earlier, Abesamis said it was Padaca herself who did the stabbing). Padaca
again threatened to kill her unless she returned the money.
As a result of these incidents, Abesamis
said she decided to work in Hong Kong. However, this did not deter Padaca from
repeatedly visiting her parents’ house to ask about her whereabouts.
Abesamis further claimed that every time
she went home for a holiday, she never went home to her hometown for fear of running
into Padaca and her men. She said that because of Padaca’s influence, it was
unlikely that she would be given protection by Philippine authorities.
Perhaps unknown to Abesamis, the TCAB checks
claims by torture claimants against country of origin information, and as a result, found several inconsistencies in her claims.
First, the gubernatorial elections in
the Philippines took place on May 9, 2016 and not in 2015 as she had claimed.
Second, it was not true that Padaca
served as governor of Isabela from around 2010 to 2015. She was elected earlier, but was unseated in
2009 and did not run again. A simple search of newspaper articles showed that from
2012 to 2015 she served as a commissioner at the Commission on Elections.
Third, Abesamis claimed there were only
two candidates for the post of governor in Isabela in 2015 or 2016, namely
Padaca and a certain Bodjie. In truth, not only did Padaca not run for the post
then, but there were four candidates in the election, and the man identified by
Abesamis in photos as Bojie was not one who contested the 2016 vote but his
son, Faustino G. Dy III.
Fourth, she claimed in a written
submission in December 2018, that Padaca herself had stabbed her, but later
corrected it was the politician’s bodyguard who did it. But the Board noted
this as odd since it would have been impossible to make a mistake between a male assailant and Padaca who uses crutches
and would have had extreme difficulty in attacking, much less stab her.
To top it all, Abesamis showed a lack of
knowledge about gubernatorial elections, such as how many voting precincts
there were, how many people voted in the election, and even the number of
candidates and their identities.
Following these findings, the Board
found that Abesamis had fabricated most, if not all of her evidence, including
her allegation that authorities in the Philippines had been complicit in her
alleged ill-treatment. As a result, the Board decided that the applicant had
failed to establish the factual basis to support her claims for protection
under the law.
Despite this, Abesamis reiterated as
grounds in her judicial review the reasons she gave the Board in applying for
non-refoulement. She did not cite any errors in law, but said the Board was
wrong in relying on country of origin information which she claimed were simply
hearsay and at times outdated.
The High Court rejected her claims,
however, saying that the function of the court in judicial review is not to
reassess non-refoulement claims, but to scrutinize the Board’s decision,
and intervene only for “errors of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality.”
The
court also dismissed other grounds cited by Abesamis, including lack of
adequate legal representation, insufficient time to read documents before the
Board heard her case, and her supposed inability to fully understand the English
language.
