By Joseph Kerr
May 13, 2005 - 9:46AM
Sydney Morning Herald

The brother of deported Australian Vivian Alvarez Solon has learnt a lot from the media in recent days.

The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, has publicly criticised the ABC for loose reporting during the search for Ms Alvarez in the Philippines, but Mr Solon has only learned through the media about the deportation of his half-sister in 2001, the search for her and her re-discovery.

The Brisbane machine operator lost touch with Ms Alvarez after she disappeared in 2001, taking calls at the time from missing persons detectives and family services officials involved in the fostering of her younger son.

"When she was reported missing, I'm not really a person with money, that I can actually hire a private investigator or that sort of stuff," he said.

"I really trust[ed] the authorities to do the looking. I didn't have the resources. All I was doing is wait - we even thought that she's already dead."

The 52-year old never even knew about the most difficult dimension of the whole case - that his half-sister had been sent overseas.

"I never realised Immigration had been involved," he said.

On Saturday April 30, he said, the department had called him asking about his half-sister, but they failed to reveal that Ms Alvarez had been deported in 2001.

"All the time I was thinking it's part of the original investigation into Vivian," he said. "I wasn't told that something came up."

The following Friday, May 6, he read a newspaper article naming his sister as the lost Australian.

"So that's why they call[ed] me," he recalled realising. "They didn't tell me - I could've been excited."

News that Ms Alvarez had been found broke on Wednesday night, with Senator Vanstone putting out two statements before 11pm, the second confirming Ms Alvarez' identity as the lost Australian.

Again, Mr Solon heard the news from the media.

"Now that she was found alive, nobody from the . . . immigration has contacted me," he said. "All these things I learn from the media."

"If you guys stop calling, after [that] maybe the Department of Immigration will be able to call me," he laughed, happy his sister has been found.