Wednesday, November 22, 2006 Does George Tan exist? ‘Come out and prove charges’ By Elias O. Bauqero & Karlon N. Rama Sun.Star Staff Reporters
OFFICIALS of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) 7 yesterday challenged their accusers to come out in the open and show proof that two Chinese nationals were denied entry because they failed to give P200,000.
BI 7 Director Geronimo Rosas believes that the arrival of the two Chinese nationals, identified as Deng Minwei and Cai Zhouzhi, may be a case of attempted human smuggling.
Other immigration officers also believe that an assistant city prosecutor whom they did not identify may have made the fabricated charges against them using fictitious names.
Rosas said it is also not true that the two Chinese nationals came to Cebu to work because as indicated in their passports their visas are “not valid for study, practice of profession or employment in the Philippines.”
BI 7 Legal Officer Serafin Abellon said the two Chinese nationals were not allowed to enter Cebu because they did not have any address in Cebu, they did not know how to speak English or Filipino, they cannot write, they did not have money, and they did not know where to go.
“Granting we allowed them to enter Cebu, where will they go? To George Tan, granting he is not fictitious? And what will George Tan do with them?” another immigration who requested anonymity said.
But Tan, a businessman from Quezon City, filed a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas that explained how he had the two foreigners come to the Philippines for jobs at his prawn farm and, at the same time, alleged that the P100,000 was “demanded” from each of the foreigners.
“Director Geronimo Rosas should not have looked only after his own selfish interest of extorting money from the people. He ought to be a model public servant. He must look after the welfare of the nation,” Tan said in an affidavit sworn before lawyer Pedro Leslie Salva.
Salva said Tan went to his office yesterday.
Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr., in an interview over radio dyLA, vowed to look into the allegations that also impleaded Gemma Maximo Torres, Reynaldo Abrea and Ferdie Balbuena.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who earlier placed Rosas under investigation over allegations of bribery and turning a blind’s eye on incidents of human trafficking of Indians and Pakistanis, also promised to have the incident looked into.
In a separate interview, Assistant City Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro, whom Rosas had blames for the “black propaganda” against him, denied knowledge of the incident.
Sought for comment in her office at the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor, she said she has been in Iloilo all this time and no longer had any contact with the Central Visayas office.
While belonging to the prosecution service, Castro was earlier detailed to Rosas’ office to assist in the legal department.
She was pulled out of the assignment upon orders of the justice secretary and assigned to Iloilo, Gonzalez’s home province, after she got in conflict with certain people at the BI 7 office.
Tan, in his affidavit, identified himself as a legitimate businessman running a prawn business.
He said he hired two Chinese technicians—whom he did not name in the complaint—to help in his prawn farms. They arrived in Cebu from Hong Kong last Nov. 13 and had reservations at the Waterfront Hotel in Lapu-Lapu City, right across the international airport.
“To my surprise and dismay, I came to know later that the two technicians were arbitrarily ordered excluded into the Philippines,” Tan said in his complaint.
He said the BI cited a law allowing the expulsion from the country of all “persons likely to become public charge.”
“It was patently absurd and presumptuous to consider the two Chinese technicians as likely to become public charge as they were being engaged due to their expertise in the field of prawn growing,” Tan said.
BI 7 Legal Officer Abellon cited Section 29 of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 which provides that aliens shall be denied entry into the Philippines if they are “likely to become public charge.”
Tan’s witnesses named Gabriel Andujar and Reginald Cabigas allegedly pleaded with the immigration officers to allow the two Chinese men to enter the country.
But the immigration area at the airport is off limits to non-passengers.
A Cathay Pacific manifest showed that Deng Minwei and Cai Zhouzhi arrived at 6:45 a.m. last Nov. 13 at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport and were sent back on the same aircraft at 7:35 a.m.
There were reports that the two were taken to the Mandaue City immigration office.
Travel from Mactan airport to Mandaue back and forth is about an hour without heavy traffic.
The exclusion order signed by Immigration Officer Gemma Maxino Torres and duty supervisor Reynaldo Abrea was acknowledged by representatives of Cathay Pacific, which carried the two Chinese nationals for Hong Kong on board flight CX 921.
Records showed that Deng Minwei and Cai Zhouzhi are natives of Fujian, China and they traveled from Xiamen to Hong Kong and then to Cebu.
Rosas recommended for their blacklisting in his memorandum for Immigration Commissioner Fernandez dated last Nov. 14.
