Alvarez deportation mess
Malacanang also to blame for Australia deportation mess

deportee Vivian Alvarez Solon when she was declared missing, a community leader said today.

At a rally outside the department's Melbourne offices, Maria Selga, the chairwoman of the Centre for Philippine Concerns in Victoria, said the centre, through a Philippines affiliate network, began its search the day the news broke that Ms Alvarez Solon was missing.

"It [the Philippines-based Centre for Migrant Advocacy] immediately contacted the Australian Embassy in the Philippines and Philippine government authorities,'' she said.

"However, they faced a blank wall - Australian officials told them they were briefed not to disclose any information. The Philippine Government, on the other hand, did not know anything about the search and sought information from us instead.

"As a community organisation of volunteers, we felt disempowered through the process."

Call for ministers' scalps

Australian Filipinos are calling for the resignations of Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone and her predecessor Philip Ruddock over the 2001 deportation, and a royal commission.

Ms Selga said Ms Alvarez Solon was deported with neck, back and head injuries, and said the department made no attempt to contact her relatives.

"Our Government deported a battered Australian citizen to a place where she did not receive appropriate medical treatment, and subsequently suffered disability.

"Our Government took her away from her children without her consent. There were witnesses in the airport - a priest, a nun and a doctor - who allegedly came to counsel her before she left.

"These people, who did want to be identified, saw Vivian Solon visibly crying and shaking, and very distressed."

Ms Alvarez Solon's injuries were initially reported to have been caused by a car accident, but the social worker assigned to her at a Brisbane hospital at the time told ABC TV she believed the woman had been bashed.

Melba Marginson, from the Centre for Philippine Concerns, said: "We are calling for the Prime Minister to establish a royal commission into deportation and detention cases in Australia, especially for people with cases of mental and physical disability.

"And prior to the inquiry, the Attorney-General and current Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, should resign from their posts."

She said women from the community had always been vulnerable in Australia, and were in danger of falling through the cracks of society.

"We are very concerned about the circumstances of the deportation,'' she said. "We feel Filipino people, and especially women, are very racially and sexually vulnerable, which is evidenced by 25 cases of murders, domestic violence and disappearance which we've investigated from the 1980s to 2000."

Ms Alvarez Solon went missing in February 2001, when she failed to collect her young son from a Brisbane child-care centre, and her marriage to an Australian man had apparently broken down.

Distressed talkback callers

The group Migrante-Philippines Australia is also calling for a royal commission to replace the current Federal Government's Palmer Inquiry, which is closed to public scrutiny.

"This has caused a lot of concern in the Filipino community,'' said spokeswoman Lina Cabaero.

"People have been going on talk radio, saying: what will happen to me if I can't find my passport and they can't understand my accent and the colour of my skin is not white?"

But Ms Cabaero says her group's immediate priority was for Ms Alvarez to be appointed a guardian by the Immigration Department.

"In her vulnerable state, she needs someone to liaise with them and to help her before she comes back to Australia," she said. #