Rodriguez fires 3 BI men

Three Immigration employees were dismissed and another one was forced to resign after being linked to a syndicate based in Cebu which smuggles Filipinos with spurious travel documents to the United States.

Immigration Commissioner Rufus Rodriguez ordered the sacking of the three employees after they were found guilty of grave misconduct for allowing seven Filipinos with fake passports and visas to leave the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) last November.

Those dismissed were Leonardo Enriquez, immigration officer; Ferdinand Balbuena, intelligence agent; and Rex Dumol, a confidential agent. Benjamin Calderon, a technical assistant, immediately resigned after the incident.

They were fired in connection with the foiled attempt of seven Filipinos to leave the country last Nov. 10 aboard a Philippine Airlines (PAL) plane bound for Narita, Japan en route to Los Angeles, California.

The seven, who were already aboard their plane, were barred from leaving by PAL personnel who were alerted by agents of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

The PAOCTF claimed that Dumol, Balbuena and Enriquez are members of a syndicate smuggling people out of the country via the Mactan airport in exchange for hefty fees amounting to as much as P150,000 to 200,000 per passenger.

The departing passengers are provided with fake travel documents and are escorted through airport security and immigration checkpoints to make sure they board their outward flights.