This may be startling news about Fischer, once hailed as an all-American hero after he wrested the crown from the Russian Boris Spassky, then the reigning world chess champion in 1972 in the Icelandic capital, where he spent his last years in exile, died and was secretly buried in a church courtyard last January.

But really more startling than this was the revelation that Fischer was the father of a Filipina girl, Pinky, now seven years old, whose mother Marilyn Young, a 29-year-old management studies student in Baguio City, claimed that the girl is Fischer’s daughter.

Young is now engaged in a legal wrangle with other claimants over Fischer’s estate, One is Miyoko Watai, a 63-year-old Japanese chess grandmaster herself and reported to have been married to Fischer in Tokyo, Japan. The other is Russell Tang, an ex-husband of Fischer’s late sister, Joan, who flew to Reykjavik within hours of Fischer’s death to secure the interests of his two sons, Fischer’s nephews.

I read all about this in an article in The Sunday Times of London that examined the controversial life and legacy of Fischer, who passed away soon after he was released from Reykjavik’s central clinic where he underwent treatment for a kidney ailment.

Bobby, as he was called by many Filipino chess players like Florencio Campomanes, the first and only Filipino to become president of the FIDE (the world chess federation), Eugene Torre, Asia’s first chess grandmaster, and this writer who all befriended him when he first visited Manila during the early years of martial law is remembered as an amiable "King of Chess," who pleasingly autographed his chess books for us, especially three copies from my own collection. And certainly not like the "crazy recluse" and "dishevelled 64-year-old" exile in Reykjavik as he was pictured in The Sunday Times article.

Years before this awful image of Fischer found print, while wandering incognito in many places in the world, Bobby found himself in Baguio City. There he met Marilyn Young. He lived with her and their child, Pinky, was born on May 21, 2001, according to Young’s Filipino lawyer Samuel Estimo, also a chess player.

Estimo, as reported in the Times article, has documents to support this claim, including Pinky’s birth certificate, her passport, signed photographs and postcard Fischer wrote to the girl, and copies of bank statements showing that he regularly sent her the equivalent of around 1,000 pounds a month, all of which Estimo intends to present to Icelandic authorities.

The same article went on: "Although Estimo describes Young as a kind woman who would like the disagreement over Fischer’s estate settled amicably, what he goes on to say suggests the opposite is likely. Firstly, he casts doubt on the legitimacy of Fischer’s marriage to Watai, saying the chess champion was stateless at the time of the ceremony. He then raises the specter of ordering Fischer’s body be disinterred for DNA testing…

"Much of this is news to Watai’s urbane Icelandic lawyer, Ami Vihjalmsson, who produced a copy of a marriage certificate showing Fischer and Watai were married in Tokyo on September 6, 2004…"

Apart from the claims of Watai and Jinky, the same article said, there are those of Fischer’s nephews as represented by their father Russell Tang and the US government, which had cancelled Fischer passport, and is now seeking to recoup Fischer’s "unpaid taxes."

All the parties in this legal wrangle over Fischer fortune have until May 17, 2008 to file their respective claims with the Ministry of Justice of Iceland, which may end up in a district court for decision or possibly even in the Supreme Court, since Fischer was an Icelandic citizen at the time of his death.