EDITORIAL — Slow boat to Malaysia

Boats, not aircraft, took the Guo siblings out of the Philippines last month. This was according to Shiela Leal Guo, said to be the sister of dismissed mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac. Shiela, who was intercepted last week in Indonesia and sent back to Manila, faced a Senate subcommittee yesterday where she provided details about their flight.

Although senators showed irritation over what they saw as holes in Shiela’s story, the details she provided about their flight from Tarlac to Malaysia highlight the porousness of the country’s borders. The porous borders make it easy for fugitives to flee, and authorities must rush to deal with this problem.

Shiela, who admitted that she was born in China, narrated that she and her siblings Alice and Wesley were picked up from Tarlac in a van and brought to an area where they boarded a small white boat. The vessel transported them to a bigger fishing boat, which sailed for several days before they transferred to a smaller green or blue boat, which then brought them to Malaysia.

Sen. Ronald dela Rosa lost his cool, raised his voice and scolded Shiela for claiming she did not know the places where they boarded the white boat and where they finally disembarked. Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who presided over the Senate hearing, said the disembarkation point appeared to be Semporna in Sabah, Malaysia.

President Marcos, in a chance interview yesterday, said the government had already identified those who assisted the Guos in their flight, and appropriate indictments were being readied. The Bureau of Immigration, which has said the Guo siblings did not pass through ports with BI presence, said Alice Guo is now in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta.

Despite Shiela’s selective amnesia, she provided enough details that should galvanize appropriate remedial measures from concerned government agencies. For many years now, various types of contraband – including illegal drugs, guns and even motorcycles – have entered the country through unguarded coastal areas. Wanted persons were also suspected to have fled the country by sea, particularly through the poorly policed southern backdoor.

With the dramatic departure of the Guo siblings, the government must take resolute action, if not to put an end to such escapes, then at least to make it much harder for wanted persons to leave the country.