Ganut

MEMORANDUM *

Petitioner Alejo Ganut petitions for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissing his appeal from a decision of an immigration judge denying his application for asylum and ordering him excluded and deported from the United States. We grant the petition for review and remand this case to the BIA for further proceedings.

I

Ganut is a Philippines citizen who served as personal security guard and valet to former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos from 1972 until Marcos’ death in September 1989. As Marcos’ personal security valet, Ganut was a highly visible member of Marcos’ inner circle and, according to one chronicler of the Marcos regime, “was one of the three closest and familiar faces around Marcos wherever he went.”

After the 1986 Philippine presidential election, the Marcos regime came under intense domestic pressure. The election was widely viewed as fraudulent. Marcos’ *40 political opponent in the election, Corazon Aquino, held a large rally calling for the Philippine citizens to unseat the government through civil disobedience. Violence erupted. Marcos’ Defense Minister and the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces…