BI chief Morente orders probe of airport execs linked to human trafficking
Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2019 09:09:02 +0000
Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Jaime Morente has ordered an investigation into alleged involvement of some officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and other international ports in the highly-lucrative human smuggling activities.
The BI chief ordered the probe following information that immigration officials assigned to the port operations divisions were involved in the racket.
“We will elevate this to the Department of Justice (DoJ), our mother department, for investigation,” said Morente, adding that “we suspect that other agencies may be included in this complaint as the anti-trafficking efforts is a shared responsibility among members of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking.”
However, Morente stressed there will be no letup in the drive against this criminal activity of forcing unfortunate Filipinos into involuntary labor and prostitution.
The BI chief said the agency has “accomplished so much in preventing human trafficking. We have elevated our status from Tier 2 to Tier 1 in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report, and have retained that good standing for three consecutive years.”
He said this is one of the reasons why the management is requesting the next Congress to approve the pending new immigration charter replacing the outmoded laws crafted decades ago.
“For one the BI board of discipline may only recommend action to the DoJ. It is the DoJ who has the power to hire and fire employees. We believe that the control over administrative matters should be delegated to the BI for enforcement of immediate sanctions.” he added. (Jun Ramirez)