DOJ prevents Satur trip to Japan

Bayan Muna Rep. Saturnino "Satur" Ocampo was stopped yesterday from boarding his flight for Japan after he failed to show immigration agents a travel clearance from the court hearing the rebellion case against him.

"There is a hold-departure order on him and he failed to show a court order giving him permission to leave so we really can’t allow him to leave," Ferdinand Sampol, Bureau of Immigration head of supervisors at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, told The STAR yesterday.

However, Ocampo said Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Elmo Alameda had given him a "clearance verbally" to travel during a hearing on his motion for the issuance of a travel clearance.

"I’ve already been granted a travel clearance by the court in two, actually three, trips I made recently," he told The STAR. "I always returned after those trips."

Sampol said Ocampo was allowed to fly out of the country in two previous instances when he was able to present a travel clearance.

"We are just implementing the (hold-departure order) from the DOJ," he said.

Neri Colmenares, Ocampo’s lawyer, said he will file charges against Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez for abuse of authority in issuing a hold-departure order against his client.

"In the first place, Secretary Gonzalez could not and should not have issued the (order) because only the courts can do that," he said.

"There is no law that says that the Secretary of Justice can issue a hold-departure order."

Immigration authorities told him the move had been ordered by the justice department, which described the legislator as a flight risk, Colmenares said.

Ocampo was supposed to board a Northwest Airlines flight for Narita, Japan at around 5:45 yesterday morning at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal I when an immigration examiner refused to process his travel papers on grounds that the DOJ had issued a hold-departure order on him.

Ocampo said that he was going to Japan upon the invitation of two fellow members of the Inter-Parliamentarians Union who are leading members of Japan’s parliament, and two political parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Party.

"It’s a combined official and personal trip," he said.

He was also going to visit a grandson living in Japan, he added.

Ocampo will also speak at a human rights conference in Japan, where he was expected to criticize the Arroyo administration for its inability to stop assassinations of activists and members of the political left.

Immigration officials and prosecutors were not immediately available for comment.

Ocampo was among six leftist lawmakers whom state prosecutors accused of being behind a failed coup against President Arroyo last February.

Charges against Ocampo and other civilians involved in the coup are still pending, while 38 military officers are awaiting trial by a military court. — With AFP