Sacked BI execs to resign

MANILA, Philippines - Two Bureau of Immigration (BI) associate commissioners accused of a P50-million extortion attempt on casino tycoon Jack Lam announced last night they would resign.

Al Argosino and Michael Robles announced their plan to quit shortly after President Duterte disclosed in Singapore that he would fire two ranking public officials implicated in corrupt deals as soon as he returned to the Philippines late last night.

Duterte did not mention any name. The two BI officials are his appointees and fraternity brothers in the Lex Talionis in San Beda’s College of Law.

The officials announced their resignation hours after retired police Senior Supt. Wally Sombero, who served as Lam’s middleman, filed charges before the ombudsman against the two BI officials for bad faith, manifest partiality and gross inexcusable negligence for causing undue injury to government, in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Sombero claimed that Argosino and Robles initially demanded P150 million from Lam, but this was reduced to P50 million.

In his affidavit, Sombero named BI intelligence chief Charles Calima as his witness.

“To spare the Honorable President from the troubles brought about by the false allegation hurled by Mr. Wally Sombero, we are tendering our resignation effective immediately,” Argosino said in a text message to the media.

In a letter to Duterte, the two said that during their four months in the BI, they discovered that “corruption indeed exists in the person of Lam, Sombero and Calima, probably the biggest syndicate found illegally operating in the BI.”

They said BI officials have been receiving payoffs even in previous administrations.

Sombero said the P150-million extortion attempt was relayed to him by Argosino on Nov. 25, a day before the meeting between Lam and Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II was held at a hotel in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.

“Before the Secretary [Aguirre] arrived in BGC, on Nov. 25, we were already there on Nov. 25, and deputy commissioner Argosino was also there. He already expressed his demand. I was shocked but I did not mind him. He said something like ‘how about us? How much are we going to get?’ Something like that. I did not expect that,” recounted Sombero in Filipino.

Sombero said the demand was in connection with the release of 1,316 Chinese employees at Lam’s online gambling operations at the Fontana Leisure Parks and Casino in Clark Freeport, Pampanga.

The Chinese workers were arrested by the BI on Nov. 24 on charges of overstaying and other violations of immigration laws.

“These past few days have been very difficult for us and our families,” the two BI officials said, noting that they filed last Dec. 13 charges of corruption and wiretapping against Lam, Sombero, Calima and Alexander Yu.

“Unfortunately, we are no match to big-budgeted demolition campaign being launched right now by the syndicate to cover up their illegal activities at our expense,” the two BI officials said. “This is the reason why the social media and many news outfits have portrayed a different meaning in what we have done.”

With Sombero filing counter charges, the BI officials said, “it is time for the truth to prevail.”

Sombero denied Argosino and Robles’ allegation that he got P2 million out of the P50 million cash the commissioners received at the City of Dreams hotel in Parañaque City last Nov. 27.

Sombero, however, said that Lam had personally given him close to P2 million for the processing of papers of the arrested Chinese workers.

Sombero said that Argosino never gave him P2 million that was supposedly part of the P50-million bribe.

He said Lam was committed to the release of his employees, so he asked Sombero to organize a legal team.

“In fact P2 million is a small amount as payment to law firms,” Sombero explained further.

Sombero said he is not privy to Argosino and Robles’ allegation that Calima got P18 million out of the P50 million payment of Lam.

Argosino and Robles on Tuesday returned P30 million that they supposedly received from Lam.

The two officials also filed corruption charges against Lam, Sombero and Calima before the DOJ.

Sombero said the transaction for the alleged second payoff was done at a hotel inside the City of Dreams in Parañaque City on Nov. 30.

But he said the second payoff did not push through, as Lam allegedly sensed that the detained Chinese workers would not be released, and that Argosino said it was a holiday and there would be no place to deposit.

Before the transaction, Sombero, in his statement to the National Bureau of Investigation, said that he called BI intelligence division acting chief Calima “to initiate and conduct an entrapment operation.”

Sombero said Calima had informed him that he had requested for a technical group from the directorate of intelligence of the [Philippine National Police], which he formerly headed.

Calima, recently dismissed by Secretary Aguirre, was a former police official.

Sombero added Calima also asked him to call his aide de camp so he could coordinate the planned entrapment, since the BI official was then in Bacolod City and would return later to Manila.

“However, there was not enough time to set up the place where the entrapment will happen so Calima was left with no option but to monitor our meeting and wait for my signal as to when they will move in.”

Sombero previously said in the same affidavit that he initially gave P50 million to Argosino and Robles in two instances at the City of Dreams during the wee hours of Nov. 27.

Aguirre had earlier bared that Lam attempted to bribe him to be a “godfather” or protector of his alleged illegal online gambling business.

Aguirre said the bribery attempt occurred on Nov. 26, or two days after the arrest of the Chinese workers.

Aguirre said it was Sombero who relayed the bribe offer as the gambling tycoon does not speak English or Filipino.

Lam’s camp had earlier denied the bribery allegation and maintained that his online gambling business is legal.

BI alert

Aguirre has included Argosino, Robles, Calima, Sombero and interpreters Norman Ng and Alexander Yu in the BI’s Immigration Lookout Bulletin Order (ILBO) list.

Aguirre said that he issued the ILBO against them “to ensure that every person of interest in the ongoing investigations being conducted by BI, NBI and the National Prosecution Service will be readily available to present their side of the story.”

“We will get to the bottom of this. As I have said before, no stones unturned, no sacred cows in our ongoing war against corruption in the government. We will begin waging this relentless pursuit of corrupt personnel in our own backyard i.e. in the DOJ family. Let this be a warning to all. If you are corrupt, we will go after you,” he added.

Argosino and Robles, who are presidential appointees, went on a month-long leave. Aguirre has recommended to President Duterte to terminate their services at the BI.

Aside from the BI, the justice chief also informed Prosecutor General officer-in-charge Jorge Catalan Jr., NBI director Dante Gierran and Parañaque City Prosecutor Amerrhassan Paudac of his instructions. With Ghio Ong, Marvin Sy