Posted on: Saturday, February 26, 2005

Nanny who fled with Marcos allowed to stay

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A nanny for a former Philippine military commander won her right to remain in the United States, her attorney said yesterday.

Teresita Huppanda, now 56, fled the Philippines in 1986 with former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, his wife, Imelda, and about 100 others who were airlifted in U.S. military aircraft to Hawai'i. She eventually settled in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova, where she works as a Wal-Mart cashier.

The U.S. government has been trying for years to deport her. Her attorney, James Mayock of San Francisco, said she has challenged the deportation because of promises by the Reagan administration that those who fled with Marcos to avoid a civil war could remain in the United States permanently.

Huppanda obtained a number of reprieves while fighting a 1992 deportation order. Yesterday, when she and the government settled a lawsuit she had brought, she won the right to remain, Mayock said.