Immigration police have rounded up 91 Chinese nationals found working illegally as construction workers at a popular resort hotel in the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga.
Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said the Chinese were nabbed in a raid at a construction site at the resort Thursday night.
Libanan said 63 were found to be working without work permits, while 28 others had permits for jobs with descriptions that did not match their actual work. The Chinese are detained at the BI jail in Bicutan in Taguig and will be deported. But officials said the Chinese or at least some of them would be moved to the nearby Bureau of Jail Management and Penology because there is no more room at the BI detention center.
Libanan said under Philippine labor rules, a foreigner can be issued an alien employment permit only if there is no Filipino who is competent, willing and able to do the job.
“It is clear that by working at the construction site, these aliens blatantly violated our immigration and labor laws for which they should be deported to their homeland for being undesirable and illegally working aliens,” Libanan said. He said BI is now coordinating with the Chinese Embassy for the deportation of the illegal aliens.
It was learned that there were over 150 illegal Chinese working at the resort but the others managed to escape “because our agents only brought a few vans so the others could no longer fit.”
“This is very alarming since we’ve been sending construction workers abroad due to lack of opportunities here. This is an insult to our Filipino laborers because why would you hire foreign nationals as construction workers when our workers here are very competent and qualified,” he said.
“It would be the height of injustice for the BI to allow any company or establishment to engage the services of foreigners when there are many Filipinos who are equally competent and willing to do the jobs for which they were hired,” the BI chief said.
Libanan said they would also look into the possible collusion between some immigration officials and the local employers of the illegal aliens.
“We want to know how they got in and who helped them. At this point, we already want to warn those responsible for this to brace for the necessary charges we will be filing against them. I believe there is someone big behind this,” he stressed.
BI officials said that prior to the arrival of the Chinese, the resort reportedly fired its Filipino workers.
Tourists are allowed to enter Clark through the Diosdado Macapagal Airport even without visas provided they don’t leave the facility, which is a former US air force base.
BI regional director Romeo Dime said the Chinese were arrested even if they didn’t leave Clark because they found employment at the economic zone.
Cross-check
Libanan said the BI is carefully cross-checking foreigners entering the country with its so-called “derogatory list.”
“We have to profile everyone and check their identity against our derogatory list,” Libanan said in an interview over the NBN show “The Cabinet Speaks.”
The “derogatory list” includes foreigners tagged by the intelligence community as terrorists or simply undesirables.
A former Eastern Samar congressman, Libanan was appointed to the BI last April to replace Alipio Fernandez Jr. who ran for mayor in Dagupan City.
Libanan noted that border crossing patrols have also been set up across the country, particularly in Mindanao, to prevent the illegal entry of foreigners.
He pointed out that the effort is in coordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“We already wrote the DFA that we have to post at least 15 immigration personnel on the three islands near our borders with Indonesia,” he said.
Libanan said that the BI will launch Operation Coastal Seal on Sept. 3 in coordination with the Bureau of Customs. The program calls for a round-the-clock monitoring of coastal areas by BI personnel.
Libanan said that the BI is also carefully screening new immigration personnel to prevent the hiring of potential extortionists.
“Our mandate is to protect the sovereignty of the Filipino. A well-equipped immigration bureau is our first line of defense,” Libanan said, adding that BI is still burdened by lack of funds and personnel.
“We are undermanned. There are only 997 permanent employees and 900 contractuals. Our budget of P300 million is equivalent to the budget of a small town, considering that we are the country’s first line of defense against the entry of illegal aliens,” Libanan said. – With Ding Cervantes, Marvin Sy