Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Siegfred Mison, the inventor of the “Good Guys In, Bad Guys Out” campaign to rid the country of undesirable foreigners, has now had to deal with the ‘bad guys’ within his own bureau.
Mison has relieved a handful of BI officers from their posts after reports showed they were involved in graft.
Intelligence Agent Fidel Caranto Jr, of BI-General Santos City, was dismissed for his involvement in a human smuggling incident – and Immigration Officer Ralph Ian Laki of BI-NAIA was also dismissed for facilitating the arrival and departure of a Chinese national who presented a fake Filipino passport.
On July 22, Caranto was caught driving a vehicle carrying three Indians who had entered the country illegally. The three men were spotted at the shoreline of Glan in the Province of Sarangani prior to their apprehension – two of the three men are on the Bureau of Immigration’s blacklist database.
Officer Laki was caught facilitating the travel of a certain He Jun, a Chinese man who was caught using a fake Filipino passport when he attempted to depart for Hong Kong on July 18. It was later discovered that his passport was stamped with his previous arrival and departure stamps which Laki himself had posted there.
Recently the BI has had a rash of erring officers including Carol Vinoya who was dismissed for her part in facilitating a departure for a passenger in exchange for a 20,000 peso bribe.