Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. has accused the Bureau of Immigration (BI) of violating the constitutionally protected right to travel with their offloading policy.
He claims that this policy may be an outright violation of the power of the courts to issue Hold Departure Orders (HDO) upon cause. Revilla stated that criminals without HDOs can leave the country, but ordinary Filipinos wanting a vacation are being held back.
This statement came after a Filipino passenger was prevented from boarding her flight to Israel due to the BI’s alleged arbitrary offloading policy. Despite arriving at the airport eight hours before her scheduled departure time, the passenger missed her flight due to what she called “irrelevant” queries by an Immigration Officer.
Revilla’s office has received numerous complaints about the arbitrary offloading of passengers at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and was already investigating the matter when the issue surfaced.
He also revealed that a friend of Congressman Bryan Revilla was offloaded twice despite their correspondence with the BI.
According to the BI, those working at the legal and head offices are different from those at the airport, and they have no control over the latter.
During a Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing, Senator Grace Poe asked BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco about the incident.
Tansingco explained that upon learning about the event, he immediately called the concerned Immigration Officer and transferred him to their office.
he Immigration Officer denied asking the passenger for her yearbook.
Senator Poe asked for CCTV footage of the incident, but Tansingco said that BI CCTV footage only lasts 30 days and it would be challenging to retrieve it since the incident occurred on December 22 last year.
Tansingco announced that they are implementing reforms within the BI in response to the incident, including retraining their supervisors, conducting pocket trainings while at the airport, and reviewing the shifting schedule of Immigration Officers.
He also requested that some regular employees of the BI be designated as acting IOs for additional manpower. Furthermore, IOs assigned to the BI Main Office will render airport duties during the coming Holy Week, as a higher volume of passengers is expected.
