Japan Prime Minister Meets with Japanese Descendants in Philippines; Tells Group of Govt Intention to Support Citizenship Requests

By Masashi Yamaguchi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

15:40 JST, April 30, 2025

MANILA — Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Tuesday met with three Japanese descendants who were left behind in the Philippines during chaos around the end of World War II.

During the meeting in Manila, Ishiba told them the government would help them obtain Japanese citizenship and assist them in returning to Japan temporarily.

“It is very regrettable and sad that not all of [those in similar situations as you] have been able to acquire Japanese citizenship,” Ishiba said in the meeting.

Japanese who were in the country at the end of the war were deported to Japan, but there were many cases in which Filipino women who married Japanese, along with their children, were left behind. Amid strong anti-Japanese sentiment soon after the war, the second-generation Japanese descendants went into hiding and remained stateless, making it difficult to identify them and giving them Japanese citizenship.