Carabeo

MEMORANDUM *

Because we determine that there is no substantial evidence to support the determination of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) that Ms. Carabeo failed to satisfy the objective prong of the well-founded fear of persecution test, her petition for review is granted.

Ms. Carabeo’s testimony, presumed to be credible in the absence of BIA challenge, Damaize-Job v. INS, 787 F.2d 1332, 1338 (9th Cir.1986), conclusively demonstrates that she has an objectively reasonable basis for her fear of persecution. The fear stems directly from her service as a forensic accountant with the Philippine Presidential Commission on Good Government (“PCGG”), an organization whose function was to help recover the billions of dollars taken by the Marcos family. She came to the United States at the request of the government and testified in its criminal prosecution of the Marcos family. Upon her return to the Philippines, where she was to testify in a domestic trial there, Ms. Carabeo began receiving threats by telephone and notes, warning that she would suffer the consequences if she did not stop testifying against the Marcos family and its associates. The threats were effective with…

Dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 , 112 S.Ct. 812 , *751 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992), instracts that we are to defer to an asylum determination made by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), so long as its decision “is supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on the record considered as a whole”. Id. We may reverse the BIA’s determination only if evidence compels a contrary result. Id. The record reflects that during the second trial in the Philippines, when the threats were occurring, Ms. Carabeo continued to testify, and was not harmed. There is absolutely no evidence in the record that the threats were acted upon in any way. Although threats alone may constitute persecution, as the majority recognizes, a finding of persecution is not compelled by virtue of the existence of threats. See Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936 (9th Cir.2000). Accordingly, I would deny the petition.