A Bureau of Immigration officer posted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is now answering to charges of human trafficking, graft, and a breach of the ethics code governing public servants, after investigators said he waved overseas Filipino workers through for departure despite incomplete travel documents.
The National Bureau of Investigation, which took the officer into custody last week at Terminal 1 on Sept. 12, alleges he pocketed as much as P500,000 from illegal recruiters once each transaction had gone through.
BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado made the bureau’s position plain. “We will not allow our airports to become gateways for trafficking and illegal recruitment. At the same time, we will not tolerate any BI personnel who may have been involved in illegal activities. They will be investigated and held accountable if warranted by evidence,” he said.
Viado also urged Filipinos lining up work abroad to proceed carefully, stick to official channels, and run any foreign job offer past the Department of Migrant Workers before committing to a contract or booking travel.
The scrutiny has since reached beyond the man in custody. Two more personnel assigned to the Terminal 1 departure area are under review by both the NBI and the immigration bureau over suspected ties to the same recruitment-and-trafficking operation.
BI spokesperson Anisha Hassan said one of the pair has already been pulled from his assignment, while the second, hired under a job order arrangement, has been dismissed.
Hassan added that the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking has opened its own inquiry into two other individuals believed to be linked to the scheme.
