EDITORIAL - The BI needs a thorough purge

After a string of corruption-related scandals in recent years, you’d think the Bureau of Immigration would have cleaned up its act.

The scandals included the so-called pastillas scheme involving the anomalous entry of foreigners mostly Chinese who ended up working in Philippine offshore gaming operations, and the facilitation of human trafficking at the NAIA, with Filipinos being duped into working for cyberscam hubs in Myanmar.

Probers are still trying to determine if Bureau of Immigration personnel facilitated the escape of dismissed mayor Alice Guo and her supposed siblings from the Philippines last year, and whether BI negligence allowed former presidential spokesman Harry Roque to leave the country despite an order of the House of Representatives for his arrest and detention for contempt.

Now the BI faces yet another corruption scandal. During a Senate inquiry yesterday, a South Korean wanted in his country for fraud said he paid P6 million to a purported ranking BI official identified only as Paul and an accomplice named Raul so he could escape from BI custody and avoid deportation.

Surveillance video footage showed BI personnel helping Na Ikhyeon escape after he attended the preliminary investigation for an estafa case at the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office on March 4. Two job-order BI employees have been fired for the escape. BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said he does not know “Paul” or “Raul.”

At least Na was rearrested on March 9 in Pampanga together with another Korean wanted by their country for fraud, Kang Changbeom.

Clearly, however, the BI needs a drastic housecleaning. At the height of the scandals over Philippine offshore gaming operations, the Senate learned that BI personnel allowed foreigners mostly Chinese to enter the country on tourist visas for a “service fee” of P10,000. The foreigners proceeded to work for POGOs.

Between 2016 and 2020, an estimated 1.8 million Chinese entered the Philippines. A Senate probe indicated that up to a million of those Chinese travelers could have been fake tourists. They ended up working for POGOs through the “pastillas” scheme, with the bribe money reportedly handed over to BI personnel rolled up in paper like the local milk pastry.

Over 40 immigration employees were suspended. Criminal cases for corruption were filed against 86 BI employees, and 45 were dismissed in 2022. But even those penalties failed to stop the corruption. The case of the Korean fugitives is just the latest scandal that should prompt a thorough purge and structural reforms in the BI, to plug opportunities for graft.