THE Guy sisters and their 79-year-old mother, who own the thriving 3D appliance business, have received a most unusual Valentine gift from the Department of Foreign Affairs?their passports have all been ordered canceled.

The out-of-the-blue DFA action is the latest of the seamier developments in the fierce family feud pitting the lone Guy son, Gilbert Guy, against his mother and sisters that, even with the death of the 3D patriarch, continues to this day.

It is also, ironically, a wake-up call for Chinese-Filipinos who still think they are Chinese first and that the Philippines is a way station, a place to do business, before moving back to their Motherland or migrating to the West.

Despite the dual citizenship law in effect since 2003, the DFA Office of Legal Affairs still recommended that the passports of the Philippine-born Guy matriarch and her three daughters be canceled on the complaint of the Guy son.

The female Guys migrated to Canada during the mid-1970s, at the height of martial law, and subsequently obtained Canadian passports while maintaining the base of the family business in the Philippines.

Their substantial business here and their Philippine roots were apparently not enough to save the female Guys in the eyes of the foreign affairs department.

?Not being natural-born Philippine citizens and having subsequently become naturalized Canadian citizens, they are not entitled to the rights and privileges of the Dual Citizenship Law,? said Assistant Secretary Jesus Yabes, explaining his recommendation.

Following Yabes? recommendation, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin on Feb. 9 issued the cancellation order, but not before putting an escape clause, to wit: ?The cancellation of their passports shall be without prejudice to the subsequent re-issuance should the substantial issues regarding their Philippine citizenship pending before the Supreme Court be resolved in their favor.?

Ebdalin was apparently aware of the pending Supreme Court case, the very same reason why the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation, ?in respect of inter-departmental comity,? earlier decided to withhold removal proceedings against the female Guys, to the chagrin of the Gilbert Guy camp.

Why the DFA chose to ignore ?inter-departmental comity? and launch a pre-emptive decision ahead of the Supreme Court is a question we intend to ask Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?s personal trainer, Cynthia Carreon.

Heard through the grapevine

ABS-CBN?s Maria Ressa is the latest bold-faced name who have found the Japanese restaurant of the Dusit Thani hotel, especially its veranda, a discrete place to meet people at night. Even columnists Jullie Yap Daza and Johnny Litton were unaware that Ressa was a glass door away from them Tuesday night.

(Web site: www.cocktales.ph; E-mail: cocktales_mst@pldtdsl.net)