8 ex-BI execs charged for deporting alleged terrorist

MANILA, Philippines - The Office of the Ombudsman has filed graft cases against three former Bureau of Immigration (BI) commissioners and five other former officials of the agency for allowing the deportation of a suspected international terrorist sentenced by a local court to serve four to six years in prison.

In two separate charge sheets filed before the Sandiganbayan on Jan. 23 but released to the media only yesterday, former BI acting commissioner Teodoro Delarmente was charged with two counts of violation of Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Charged with one count of the same offense were former BI associate commissioners Roy Almoro and Jose Cabochan, as well as former BI executive assistant and chief of staff Alejandro Fernandez, former legal aide Richard Perez, former civil service unit acting chief Wendy Rosario, former warden Noel Espinoza and former security escort Marcelino Francis Agana.

Section 3 (e) of RA 3019 prohibits a public official from giving unwarranted benefit, advantage or preference to any party or causing any party, including the government, undue injury.

Based on the information of the cases, Delarmente, Almoro and Cabochan, Fernandez and Perez, approved on May 5, 2005 a summary deportation order for Vietnamese-American Vo Van Duc, who was being held at the BI Detention Center after being convicted by the Pasig City regional trial court of illegal possession, manufacture and disposition of firearms and explosives. He was sentenced to serve four to six years in prison in the Philippines.

The ombudsman said the SDO allowed Van Duc to “avoid service of his sentence.”

The ombudsman also said that Delarmente, Rosario, Espinoza and Agana also allowed Van Duc to leave his detention cell on three occasions in April and May 2005 by issuing medical passes “without the BI physician’s recommendation for outside treatment or hospitalization.” The passes allowed Van Duc to stay in an apartelle.

The ombudsman set Delarmente’s bail at P60,000 while the other respondents’ bail was set at P30,000 each.

Van Duc reportedly received a 12-year sentence for hurling bombs into the Vietnamese embassy compound in Bangkok, Thailand in 2001.