TOKYO—A Filipino couple in Japan Friday agreed to follow a deportation order but will leave their 13-year-old daughter behind in a case that has attracted much public sympathy here, their lawyer said.

The couple faces deportation because they entered the country on false passports nearly 17 years ago, but they had pleaded to be allowed to stay so their Japan-born daughter could finish her schooling in the country.

Japanese authorities have pressed the parents to leave the country. They detained the 36-year-old father, Arlan Cruz Calderon, this week and warned that all three would be repatriated unless the parents were to leave voluntarily.

The daughter, Noriko, who was born in Japan and only speaks Japanese, would now stay in the country with the relatives of her mother, 38, while the parents planned to leave Japan on April 13, lawyer Shogo Watanabe told AFP.

More than 20,000 people in Japan have signed a petition asking the government to allow all three to stay.

The case has attracted the attention of Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council, which has asked for information about the case. AFP