51 overstaying aliens hunted

Fifty-one foreigners, most of them Chinese nationals, are now the object of a massive manhunt by agents of the Bureau of Immigration for overstaying.

Immigration Commissioner Rufus Rodriguez issued the arrest order after being informed that the aliens did not bother to retrieve their passports on or before the expiration of their visas.

Examination of the passports, unclaimed at the bureau's main office in Intramuros, Manila, showed that their visas have already lapsed, thus making them qualified for deportation for overstaying.

The aliens include 45 Chinese, four Indians, one Sudanese and one Brunei national, who were all issued visas by Philippine consulates abroad.

Rodriguez ordered Maj. Winnie Quidato, the bureau's acting intelligence chief, to locate, arrest and detain the aliens, pending the conduct of summary deportation proceedings against them.

He also instructed the bureau's chief prosecutor, Ramoncito Tolentino, to file deportation cases against the aliens for snubbing the summons the bureau has issued to them.

Tolentino said the aliens all failed to appear at the scheduled preliminary investigation last Tuesday.

Records showed that the aliens arrived on separate dates at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in the past few weeks but their passports were held by the airport's immigration office for safekeeping.

It has been the bureau's standard operating procedure to hold the passports of restricted foreign tourists arriving at the NAIA and other airports to make sure that they would leave before their visas lapse.

The passports are only returned to their holders at the airport three hours before their scheduled departure.

Depending on their nationality, restricted tourists are admitted for a period of seven to 21 days after which they must leave, unless the immigration commissioner approves their request for extension of stay.