Laarni leaving for good — BI

Controversial mistress Laarni Enriquez is leaving again for the United States, this time for good.

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo revealed yesterday that she has received reliable information that the former movie actress is leaving the country "anytime from today."

Enriquez’s return to Manila last Feb. 18 from the US via Guam on board a Continental Airlines flight had stirred a hornet’s nest at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) when she bypassed immigration procedures.

She was ushered past Customs and immigration by former NAIA official Jake Acuña and Ernesto Yabut, reportedly a staff member of Sen. Vicente Sotto III.

"Our theory has been confirmed why Enriquez wanted to hide her arrival from the US last Feb. 18. She wanted to create the impression that she had been abroad all the time and, if she would decide to leave again, nobody would know by following the same technique," Domingo said.

But Domingo said Enriquez, one of the mistresses of deposed President Joseph Estrada, need not keep her arrival or departure a secret since her name is not included in the Bureau of Immigration’s hold-departure list as no formal charges have been filed against her in court.

"We cannot stop her from leaving the country. Her name is not in our hold-departure list," Domingo said, adding that "we can only monitor her departure, period."

Enriquez barely beat a summons to be served by the Senate sergeant-at-arms in early January requiring her to appear in the now failed impeachment trial of Estrada.

Summoned to shed light on the controversial "Boracay" mansion in New Manila in Quezon City she supposedly jointly owned with Estrada, she had already left for the airport to board a Philippine Airlines flight for Hong Kong, from where she took a connecting flight to New York reportedly to undergo a medical check-up.

Rumors had it that other Estrada mistresses were also laying low or had gone abroad at the height of the celebrated impeachment trial.

Domingo, meanwhile, instructed all immigration officers at NAIA’s Terminal I and II that if Enriquez decides to leave the country, she must be required to pass through immigration counters, otherwise her departure would be held.

Domingo also said that all immigration officials and employees at the country’s four international airports and provincial seaports are on 24-hour alert following receipt of information that other women and cronies of Estrada may attempt French leave following the Supreme Court ruling declaring the former leader’s ouster as legitimate.

In a related development, Airport General Manager Edgardo Manda warned all airport officials and employees that they would be dismissed if they aided, whether directly or indirectly, Estrada and his party or mistresses to slip out of the country to escape criminal prosecution.

But some cronies have admittedly already flown the coop, notably gambling consultant Charlie "Atong" Ang whose passport has been canceled by Philippine authorities.