Not many people might share this view, but corruption may have already become an art form in some government agencies and institutions, that it would take an expert of that genre to bring to light its suffocating pervasiveness in society.
Take for instance the Bureau of Immigration (BI) which lately has been in the spotlight because of the Alice Guo controversy, and for which President Bongbong Marcos has already declared that heads will certainly roll due to the fiasco.
For those still unaware of recent events involving Alice Guo, dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor, she has finally arrived on Philippine soil in the early morning of Friday after being arrested and deported by Indonesian authorities and fetched by no less than the Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Benhur Abalos and PNP Chief General Rommel Marbil from that country.
Back in July, Guo did a Houdini disappearing act by departing from the Philippines without the government knowing about it, and which led to the consternation of the Senate which had earlier issued an arrest warrant for her and seven others for refusing to appear before the legislative body to shed light on the issue of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO).
Now that dismissed mayor Alice Guo is back in the Philippines, the Senate, as well as other concerned authorities, should not only look into her involvement with POGOs but should also conduct a more incisive investigation as to how she was able to elude Philippine government authorities and depart from the country, allegedly along with her sister Sheila Guo (Zhang Mier) who is now in the custody of the Senate.
There are a lot of questions that have to be answered in the escapade of the Guo sisters. But one thing is clear at the moment: They could not have departed from the country without the help and support of not only private individuals or groups but also most definitely from some offices and agencies of the government.
At this time, one particular agency stands out in the controversy, and that is the Bureau of Immigration whose primary function as contained in its mission and vision is to “Secure the borders through automated and streamlined immigration control systems.” If the BI is doing its job, then the Guo fiasco could not have materialized and the sisters would not have been able to leave the country under the unsuspecting eyes and noses of the authorities.
It therefore behooves the Senate to conduct another line of inquiry, apart from the POGO issue, regarding the details on how the Guo sisters were able to leave the country despite being monitored of their movements from the time the arrest warrant by the Senate was issued against them.
Other authorities, such as the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) or the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), should start putting their heads together and conduct a massive and comprehensive probe at the BI to determine the criminal liability of some of its officials and employees who are most probably in cahoots with other private individuals and entities in facilitating the departure of the Guo sisters from the country.
It should be recalled that back in 2022, the Ombudsman indicted 43 BI immigration personnel who were involved in the so called “pastillas” scheme where they, according to the Ombudsman, “allowed the entry of foreign passengers into the country without going through regular and stringent profiling or screening processes in violation of existing immigration rules and procedures, to the prejudice of the government and public interest.”
Of course this was done in exchange for sums of money which were reported to have been wrapped in paper; hence, the term “pastillas.” Since then, it was learned that some of those allegedly involved in the pastillas scheme have returned to the BI after serving the six-month preventive suspension slapped on them by the Office of the Ombudsman, and at least one of them was even given the job of heading the Border Control and Intelligence Unit (BCIU) of the BI despite information that he was administratively dismissed and facing criminal charges due to his involvement in the scam.
There is no question, then, that the rot goes deep in the BI, and that money goes a long way into smoothing the rough edges of our borders, allowing easy entry or departure from the country. What to do about it? Well, one suggestion is a top-to-bottom revamp of those tasked with control.
They can start at the BCIU which is reportedly headed by an administratively dismissed official. From there, investigators can backtrack to get to the higher-ups in the BI who decide directly on who should leave and who should enter. Only when the real culprits in the Guo fiasco are revealed and charged in court can the government restore some modicum of trust and faith in the people tasked with securing the country’s borders.
