(From left) Yasohiro Ishiyama with Tessie Bastes and her daughter Maiko, with her baby daughter. BING JABADAN

MANILA, Philippines?Tessie Bastes, 47, of Mampising village, Mabini, Compostela Valley had cervical cancer and had only a few months to live. Her last wish was to help her daughter find her Japanese father.

Philanthropist Hideaki Tanahashi, of the Japanese Child Support Foundation Inc., who has been helping reunite missing Japanese fathers with their Filipino children, is helping Tessie realize her wish.

Tanahashi obtained documents from Tessie showing she went to Japan on December 2, 1987 as an exchange student. There, she met and fell in love with Koichi Ikegami, an engineering student.

Her love story

After finishing her studies, Tessie, accompanied by Koichi, returned to the Philippines on December 5, 1988. A year later, she got pregnant and on April 25, 1990, she gave birth to their child, Maiko.

Tessie and Koichi got married in the Philippines on January 17, 1991. In 1995, Koichi returned to Japan supposedly for a brief visit but, for unknown reasons, he failed to return to Tessie and Maiko, and was never heard from since.

?Tessie said she never gave up hoping, praying that one day she and her daughter would be reunited with Koichi and they would become a family again,? Tanahashi said.

But as the years passed, she became depressed and her health started to fail. She noticed her belly getting bloated every day but because of poverty, she was unable to see a doctor.

In 2008, Tessie heard about Tanahashi?s foundation. With her neighbors? help, she journeyed to the newly set up satellite office of the foundation in Tagum City, Davao Del Norte.

Tessie asked the foundation to help her locate her long-lost husband in Japan and to help her get some medication.

The foundation brought Tessie to a hospital, where she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cervical cancer. She was told she only had a few months to live.

Husband located

Tanahashi said the foundation?s liaison officer in Japan, Yasohiro Ishiyama, managed to locate Koichi, now 59, living in Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan with his new wife and children.

Ishiyama went back to the Philippines and personally brought the news to Tessie in Compostela Valley. She learned that Koichi was also in dire financial straits in Japan because of the economic crisis and could not help her undergo chemotherapy.

Through the foundation, Koichi and Tessie spoke for the first time on the phone after 18 years of separation.

Tanahashi said Koichi later told him that he was acknowledging Maiko as his daughter and would also want to help her because Maiko has also given birth to a baby girl, his granddaughter.

?The only help Koichi could extend to his dying wife was to acknowledge Maiko, a big help for her daughter to get Japanese citizenship so she could live and work in Japan to earn some money for her ailing mother in Mindanao,? he said.

Tanahashi still remembers a teary-eyed Tessie, who was then in pain and gasping for breath as she told him, ?I only have a few months to live. I wish that before I die, the Japanese consulate would be kind enough to grant my Maiko a visa to Japan.?

?I will die soon and not be there to look after her and her growing child. I will die peacefully once I know that my daughter and my grandchild could have a better life,? he quoted Tessie as saying.

Tessie died on March 27 without seeing realizing her wish, but the process continues for Maiko.

Tanahashi said the foundation has continued its documentation procedures and legal hearings in Japan so that Koichi?s acknowledgment of Maiko as his biological child would be recognized under Japanese law and pave the way for her to becoming a Japanese citizen.

Tanahashi said the process may be abbreviated if Maiko would be allowed to personally go to Japan to pursue her claims, but the Japanese immigration and consular authorities, wary of scams and fakers, have a policy against issuing visas to foreigners who are in a similar situation.

?Tessie would not rest in peace until her daughter?s future is assured,? Tanahashi said, adding that the foundation?s corporate sponsors in Japan are ready to help train Maiko and get her a job there.

Another Japino

Aside from Maiko, the foundation is also prioritizing the case of 10-year-old Hiro Torres, son of a former Filipino entertainer who died of meningitis a year ago.

Mirinda Garcia-Torres, 33, a resident of Cabanatuan City, left Hiro a letter to his missing father, Kenji Oto.

Written in Nihongo, the letter reads:

?Dear Papa, how are you? I?m Mirinda, Kenji. I want to ask you for a favor. Please help your son because I?m very ill and dying. Please, Kenji, please help your son Hiro, he is a pity and please don?t forsake him.

?Why didn?t you call us up until now? I?m still waiting for your call, I can?t forget you. You are the only one I love. I love you so much. Every time I think of you, my heart is beating so fast. Papa, I never cheated on you. I?m still waiting for you and I miss you so much. Please call me at once I want to hear your voice. Hiro keeps on asking why you never call, and he misses you so much.

?Papa, even though you don?t have money, it?s okay with me. You are the only one I love ?til the day I die. I will love you and I?m always thinking of you and every day I?m hoping and praying for your call.

?Please call me, you are still the one I love. If you don?t love me anymore, just let me know. Even though it hurts, I will accept it. But I beg you, Papa, please help Hiro, for his future because I?m very ill and I don?t know what will happen to me and I may not be able to see you again.

?Please, Papa, don?t you miss Hiro? Please take good care of Hiro. My body is only yours. I never cheated on you. Please, Kenji. Mirinda.?

According to Tanahashi, Mirinda met Kenji when she worked as an entertainer in Japan.

Accompanied by his grandparents, Hiro went to the foundation?s office in San Isidro, Makati , last February to seek help in locating his father in Japan.

Hiro?s grandparents, who refused to be named, said sometime in September 2004, Hiro and his ailing mother, sought the assistance of another foundation in Pasig City, but ended up being scammed.

They said the foundation made Mirinda sign an authorization letter granting the foundation the full authority and exclusivity to obtain financial support for Hiro from his father. She was also required to reimburse the foundation if the outcome of its efforts turned out negative. She was also asked to donate an amount to the foundation if its efforts were fruitful.

300 housed in foundation

The foundation did find Kenji, but Hiro and Mirinda never had the chance to talk to him, according to the grandparents.

Mirinda received P4,000 from the Pasig-based foundation, which said it came from Kenji. But Hiro and his mother heard neither from the foundation nor Kenji since then.

With Tanahashi?s help, Hiro hopes and prays his dream of being reunited with his father would be fulfilled this time.

Tanahashi said the main goal of the foundation is to help the so-called ?Japinos? locate their biological fathers in Japan. The foundation helps Japinos get acknowledgment as biological children and thereby acquire Japanese citizenship so they can live in Japan and have better opportunities there.

The foundation is funded by corporate sponsors in Japan which pay for office rental, food, shelter, and other needs of Japinos in the Philippines who are being assisted by the foundation.

The foundation office on Copernico Street in San Isidro, Tanahashi said, is at present housing Maiko, Hiro, and about 300 other Japinos from the provinces who are all awaiting the outcomes of the search for their Japanese fathers.

?We decided to keep them here in Makati for the meantime so they can be easily contacted in case of some development in Japan. Many of them are so poor they can?t even afford to travel to Manila,? he said.

Tanahashi added that he and other supporters of the foundation give free Nihongo lessons to Maiko and fellow Japinos who want to learn.

Fly-by-night foundations

The foundation has better chances of pursuing and proving claims if a Filipino woman with a ?love child? from a Japanese man has proof they were together in the past, such as photographs, travel papers, and letters.

Tanahashi warned against fly-by-night foundations whose intention is to victimize.

?There are numerous so-called foundations posing to help Japinos? locate their parents but they?re actually using the claims to blackmail and extort huge amounts of money from their fathers,? he said.

By Bing Jabadan
Philippine Daily Inquirer