Barbers accuses BID of freeing suspected terrorist

The Bureau of Immigration released last year under questionable circumstances a suspected terrorist wanted by the United States, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers revealed yesterday.

In a privilege speech, Barbers said BI officials did not only give Vo Van Duc, an American citizen of Vietnamese descent, his freedom but handed him a Philippine passport as well.

"He was a BI detainee until last year. Now he is nowhere to be found," Barbers said.

He said he has reliable information that "this former detainee is being sought by no less than the United States for being a terrorist suspect." He said US authorities have been inquiring how Vo gained freedom.

"Did he take a flight out of the country? Where did he go, and under what Filipino name? Is he still in the country? Is he working with local and international terrorists to bring down governments?" he asked.

Barbers told his colleagues that immigration agents arrested the US citizen in late 2001 together with another American, Hyunh Thuan Ngok, also of Vietnamese descent, "for being overstaying aliens and for engaging in unauthorized political activities here in the country."

"On May 21, 2005, Vo Van Duc walked to freedom as a Filipino citizen. All he needed to do was to go to the airport unaided, to be handed his Philippine passport and become one of us, a Filipino. Malaya na, Filipino pa (already free and a Filipino), though he may be poorer by several million," he said.

He blamed BI commissioners Teodoro Delarmente, Jose Cabochan and Roy Almoro for the "suspicious" release of the American.

He said his concern is not that the US citizen is being sought by his own government for being a suspected terrorist, but that "freedom-for-sale is being perpetrated with impunity in the BI."

"It is about time that the bureau shakes off the now fast-becoming meaning of its (former) acronym BID (Bureau of Immigration and Deportation), Bayad Importante Dito (bribe money is important here), and restore its real meaning and lost glory," Barbers stressed.

The Surigao lawmaker cited another "freedom-for-sale" case involving Zhang Du, alias Wilson Zhang, a Chinese citizen arrested by agents of the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force on Sept. 27, 2001 in the Jacky Tiu kidnap-for-ransom case.

He said Zhang, charged before the Regional Trial Court of San Fernando, La Union, was then detained at the BI detention center in Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan when he was spirited out of the country.

He said the suspect was deported on May 7, 2005, a Saturday, despite the fact that the charges against him were still pending in court.

He said it was Police Supt. Wendy Rosario, apparently assigned to the BI detention center, who ordered his agents to escort Zhang to the airport.

"I have heard it so many times from fellow Filipinos that here in our country, everything and everyone has a price, and depending on the amount offered, it is almost certain that there will be a ‘deal.’ Seriously, I am beginning to see the truth in those claims," he said.

Barbers pointed out that the only logical conclusion that could be drawn from the release of Vo and Zhang "is that these aliens have bought their freedom."