August 6, 2025
SAN PABLO – A son of a Japanese man, who was left behind in the Philippines during the turmoil around the end of World War II, was expected to visit Japan for the first time Wednesday. He plans to meet his siblings living in Osaka and visit the grave of his father.
Jose Takei, who lives in Laguna Province’s San Pablo near Manila, was born in May 1943 to Benita Abril and Ginjiro Takei, an engineer for the Philippine national railway company. Abril was separated from Ginjiro while pregnant with Jose. Ginjiro had left a doll with Abril, saying he will return someday, and she had cherished the doll as a memory of him but lost it during the post-war turmoil.
Jose Takei, 82, said he had believed his mother’s second husband was his biological father when he was very young. However, when he was eight or nine years old, he asked his mother if it was true that he’s the child of a Japanese person, like a neighbor had said. She told him that his real father had returned to Japan.
Because of the war, anti-Japanese sentiment was strong in the Philippines and Takei was bullied at school, being called a bad person. Takei said he felt pent up anger toward his father for not returning to the Philippines and failing to keep his promise.
Takei married in 1965 and had four sons and three daughters. Over time, his anger toward his father faded, and his interest in his origin grew.
A turning point came in 2009. With the assistance of the Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center, a Tokyo-based support group, and other parties, Takei was able to identify his father through records from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. His father returned to Japan after the war, lived in Osaka and died in 2005, the same year as his mother.
Last year, Takei saw a photo of his father for the first time. His children told him Ginjiro looks just like their father.
During his stay in Japan, Takei plans to learn from his siblings about his father’s life. He also plans to visit his father’s grave and ask him why he could not keep his promise to his wife.
Many second-generation Japanese-Filipinos were forced to be stateless as they were unable to obtain even Philippine citizenship due to the Philippines’ patriarchal policy at the time of their births, under which children acquire citizenship though their father.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry has been supporting their acquisition of Japanese nationality since 1995 with the cooperation of a Japanese-Filipino association. However, it is difficult for the descendants to create a new family register in Japan without clear documented proof.
According to the legal support center, there were an estimated 372 second-generation Japanese-Filipinos without Japanese nationality as of the end of March, including those whose whereabouts are unknown. The average age of the descendants is over 83.
“On the occasion of Takei’s visit to Japan, we want to extend support to other second-generation Japanese descendants,” a Foreign Ministry official said.