Wednesday, October 21, 2020

After ‘pastillas,’ Senate panel probes human trafficking. Inquirer Newsletter. October 22, 2020

‘WASHING IN’ Following heavy rains brought by Tropical Storm “Pepito,” garbage washes up on Wednesday on the stretch of the Manila Bay shore that has been covered with pulverized dolomite, a fresh blemish on the controversial “white sand” project of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. —RICHARD A. REYES

Regions

Museum’s help sought on Kalibasib

Kalibasib, the first tamaraw bred in captivity that died early this month, has been kept in cold storage but its carcass is starting to show signs of decay. Officials of Occidental Mindoro and the Tamaraw Conservation Program have asked the National Museum to help ensure Kalibasib’s preservation, citing how it symbolized the campaign to save the critically endangered dwarf buffalo on Mindoro Island. —STORY BY MARICAR CINCO

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News

Hotels may now run at full capacity

Hotels in areas under general community quarantine (GCQ) and modified GCQ may now operate at full capacity, provided they comply with the guidelines to be issued by the Department of Tourism. “Along with this comes the need to ready the whole tourism value chain, [mainly] the accommodation, transportation and tour operation sectors,’’ Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said on Wednesday. —STORY BY TINA G. SANTOS

World

Brazil backtracks on China vaccine

BRASILIA—Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said his government would not purchase China’s Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19, a day after the health minister said it would be included in the national immunization program. The inclusion of the vaccine called CoronaVac would have been a major success for Sinovac in what could be one of the first immunization efforts against the coronavirus in the world. —STORY BY REUTERS

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After ‘pastillas,’ Senate panel probes human trafficking

By DJ Yap and Marlon Ramos

After exposing a multibillion-peso scam involving immigration officers taking bribes from Chinese nationals arriving at the airport, the Senate panel headed by Sen. Risa Hontiveros will investigate reports of human trafficking as a third “revenue stream” of corruption in the Bureau of Immigration (BI).

“If they have a ‘pyramiding scheme’ for those entering the country, it is not far-fetched that their illegal commerce extends to those who are exiting the country,” Hontiveros said on Wednesday.

The chair of the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality will look into reports that paid immigration officers were also helping outbound women and children being trafficked by syndicates abroad.

“It appears that the BI has become a one-stop shop for corruption. They have entered into all sorts of activities just to earn a profit,” Hontiveros said in a statement to the Inquirer.

On Tuesday, Hontiveros said corrupt immigration officials had pocketed some P40 billion in bribe money since 2017 by facilitating the entry of Chinese nationals or assisting the departure of trafficked people at the airport.

DOJ action

The Department of Justice (DOJ) would pursue the investigation of the “pastillas scheme” and prosecute erring immigration personnel, Secretary Menardo Guevarra said on Wednesday.

“Those who smear the dignity of their public office will continue to be vigorously investigated and prosecuted,” Guevarra told the Inquirer in a Viber message.

But he said the staggering amount of payola to the BI officials was just “in the realm of mere possibilities” since such illegal acts were usually done without documentary evidence.

“However, a fair indicator of such magnitude, though not necessarily conclusive, is the lifestyle being led by people suspected of wrongdoing in relation to their regular compensation as government employees,” he said.

Guevarra surmised that the low salaries of immigration personnel might have forced some of them to engage in graft and corruption activities. “But low pay is not a valid reason to break the law,” he said.

The National Bureau of Investigation has already filed cases in the Office of the Ombudsman against 19 immigration officers allegedly involved in the pastillas scheme.

BI modernization bill

Guevarra said the DOJ was hoping that Congress would swiftly act on the proposed BI modernization bill to pave the way for an increase in the basic pay of immigration employees. The measure has been pending in the legislature since 2017.

On Tuesday, Hontiveros’ committee ended its nine-month series of inquiries into corruption at the bureau, exposing bribery from the so-called pastillas scam and the visa-upon-arrival (VUA) for Chinese nationals, mostly tourists who intended to work for Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos).

In the pastillas scheme, immigration officials allowed the smooth entry of Chinese nationals for a P10,000 “service fee” rolled in white wrapper like the milk candy.

Hontiveros said the racket generated P30 billion in bribes from 3.8 million Chinese arrivals and shared among immigration officers, another P2 billion from Chinese tourists needing visas pocketed directly by some BI officials and the rest from facilitating the departure of trafficked people.

“Our estimate is that the masterminds have pocketed P30 billion. That’s based on the arrival data of Chinese nationals who are non-VUA. As for VUA, another revenue stream, the kickbacks go straight into the pockets of some officials,” she said.

Based on BI figures, some 4 million Chinese nationals have entered the country since 2017.

Third revenue stream

Hontiveros vowed to scrutinize the “seemingly diversified revenue streams borne out of the depth and breadth of corruption at the BI,” including the trafficking of people departing from the airport as the possible third “revenue stream” for corrupt immigration officials.

The senator said the BI rackets practically rolled out the red carpet for the “online gambling industry and the cross-border trafficking of women.”

She said this was made possible through Department Order No. 41 issued by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II in 2017. The order allowed Chinese nationals to enter the Philippines without a visa issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Previous Senate hearings showed that VUAs were processed by travel agencies, many of which only required a mere screenshot of the applicant’s passport sent via the WeChat app.

“The person involved could have been trafficked by a syndicate, but as long as she or he had no derogatory record on paper, then that person would have been able to enter the country with a VUA,” Hontiveros said.

Editorial

Paltry budget for vaccines

President Duterte’s lofty promise to have at least 20 million Filipinos inoculated with the eagerly awaited COVID-19 vaccine is in very real danger of being unfulfilled, at the rate that Congress is going about crafting the spending plan for 2021. Under the record high P4.506-trillion General Appropriations Bill approved by the House of Representatives on third reading last week, a paltry P2.5 billion was set aside for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines by the Department of Health. How paltry is paltry? At an estimated price of P641 per dose, only about 3.9 million Filipinos, or a mere 3 percent of the population, will get their hands on a vaccine meant to protect them from the disease that has already infected over 360,000 Filipinos and claimed the lives of almost 6,700.

The 'small committee' that was formed by the House under new Speaker Lord Allan Velasco to give the budget another look before transmittal to the Senate did give the vaccine purchase budget a boost of P5.5 billion. If approved, this will expand the vaccine coverage to some 12 million Filipinos. Unfortunately, the extra P5.5 billion for the vaccines and the added amounts for the pandemic response cannot be counted on just yet, due to questions raised by senators about the propriety and legality of tinkering with the budget plan after it had already been approved by the House for transmittal to the Senate by the first week of November.

Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net