Senior vice minister says he inquired about visas to illegal Filipinos+

TOKYO, Nov. 14 Kyodo - Senior Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Masatoshi Kurata said Friday he filed an inquiry only once with the government over the issuance of visas to two Filipino women who came to Japan for charity activities but were later found to be working at a Philippine pub in Shizuoka, the capital of Shizuoka Prefecture in central Japan.

But Kurata, a third-term member of the House of Representatives from the
governing Liberal Democratic Party, denied allegations that he asked the
Foreign Ministry and Justice Ministry to grant visas to the two Filipino women
who were arrested in September for allegedly working illegally in Japan.
Kurata made the remark in response to an opposition questioner during the day's
session of the lower house's Judicial Affairs Committee.
Kurata, who was appointed as a senior vice minister in Prime Minister Taro
Aso's government in late September, said he was asked by his former aide this
past summer to inquire about the progress because no visas were issued to the
women several months after they lodged the applications.
Kurata said he called the phone number shown by the former aide, asked the
respondent to comment on the progress, and turned the phone to the aide.
A Foreign Ministry official who attended the committee session declined to
comment, saying the matter is currently under police investigation.
In mid-October, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that Kurata asked
officials at the two ministries to grant short-stay visas to the Filipinos.
The women had obtained the visas on the grounds that they would perform at
charity concerts in Japan, the report said. A Japanese nonprofit organization
involved in the visa applications was run, in effect, by the former aide to
Kurata, according to the report.
Shizuoka prefectural police are planning to build a case against the former
secretary, suspecting that he assisted in the illegal hiring of the women,
police sources said at that time.
According to the police sources, the former aide effectively runs MIRAI, an NPO
in the city of Shizuoka that invited the women to Japan ostensibly to perform
in charity concerts. The organization also served as the women's guarantor in
Japan.
The former aide is suspected of helping the women enter Japan on short-term
stay visas rather than entertainment visas and dispatching them to a bar to
''entertain customers'' in violation of provisions against aiding illegal
employment in the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, the sources
said.
In late September, the prefectural police arrested three employees of the bar
as well as the two women who were working there as dancers.
Investigators searched the office of MIRAI at that time and questioned Kurata's
former aide.
==Kyodo