Chiz: New BI chief should speed up reimbursements for offloaded travelers

Senate President Francis "Chiz" Escudero said the incoming chief of the Bureau of Immigration should rush the reimbursements for passengers who missed their flights due to BI pre-departure procedures.

In a statement on Tuesday, Escudero said that the reimbursements were yet to be issued despite the reimbursement being mandated inr the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

“’Ber’ months na, pero ni isang kusing wala pa ring nabayaran sa kahit isang pasaherong naperwisyo. Ang bilis mag-offload [ng pasahero], ang bagal naman mag-download ng reimbursement,” Escudero commented.

(It’s already the ‘Ber months, but not even one of the inconvenienced passengers has received a centavo. They are quick to offload [passengers] yet the reimbursements are downloaded slowly.)

Escudero said that there were still no guidelines prepared for these reimbursements despite “clear instructions” in the GAA, and that the involved agencies are “seemingly dragging their feet on this matter.”

He noted that the delay will “hound the BI” should it still be unresolved by the start of the plenary debates for the 2025 national budget in November.

On Monday, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said that President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. agreed to relieve BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco from his post.

The Senate President criticized the “job interview-kind of questioning and presentation of credentials” implemented by the country’s immigration officers, and how it has led to additional expenses and inconveniences for thousands of Filipino passengers.

“In the guise of fighting human trafficking, many have been unfairly and arbitrarily denied their right to travel, their fate at the hands of ‘gods’ at the airport gate. The almost 32,000 offloaded passengers could fill 177 narrow-body Airbus jets. Sa dinami-dami ng [tao na] pinerwisyo niyo dahil sa hinalang biktima sila ng human trafficking, kakarampot lang ang lumalabas na totoong may kaso. [Of the many people you have inconvenienced due to the suspicion of human trafficking, hardly any of them turn out to have actual cases.] There’s something wrong with this picture,” he said.

“I have personally heard of the plight of OFWs returning to their legal jobs abroad with little money left in their pockets—with some becoming instant refugees in their own land because some of their countrymen deemed them unfit for travel,” he added.

Escudero noted that passengers with visas have already been screened and approved by their destination countries, and that the country cannot have “two immigration regimes” where “moneyed fugitives escaping the law are escorted to waiting private jets and yachts, while ordinary folks have to go through the wringer on the mere suspicion of being unfit for travel.”

On August 28, Tansingco said that 16,617 passengers were offloaded in the first half of 2024.

"So far, we received no formal complaint for an arbitrary offloading. The composition of this is 7,985 OFWs, 7,591 presenting themselves as tourists, 1,041 categorized as others," he said.

In 2023, the BI offloaded 36,316 passengers, while over 32,404 passengers were offloaded in 2022.

Only 472 of the offloaded passengers in 2022 were confirmed victims of human trafficking or illegal recruitment. — Jiselle Anne C. Casucian/BM, GMA Integrated News