Hats off to Asi
It’s been a long journey from Tonga to the Philippines for Asi Taulava. When he arrived here to play for Blu Detergent in the PBL in 1997, there were doubts as to his ethnicity. Was he actually half-Filipino? Taulava was deported in the wake of suspicions of fake Fil-foreigners claiming blood lineage in 2000. Sonny Alvarado, Rob Parker and Al Segova were exposed as impostors, shipped out and never heard of again. But Taulava fought for his rights, returned in 2001 and later brought his Filipina mother Pauline Hernandez to appear before a panel of immigration interrogators to argue his case. He was eventually cleared by the Department of Justice.
