BI recommends filing of grave misconduct charges vs execs tagged in 'pastillas' scheme
MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Immigration on Tuesday said it recommended to the Department of Justice that officials tagged in the "pastillas" bribery scheme be slapped with administrative charges.
"The result of the fact-finding committee is actually adverse to all of them, to the respondents. So we recommended that they be administratively charged for conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and for grave misconduct," BI Deputy Commissioner Toby Javier told the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality.
Javier chaired the fact-finding committee tasked with investigating the immigration officials tagged by whistleblower Immigration Officer Allison Chiong as part of the "pastillas group."
In addition to submitting the fact-finding committee report to the DOJ, BI Commissioner Jaime Morente told senators that he requested that Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra task the National Bureau of Investigation with conducting a separate probe into the scheme.
"I welcome the announcement of the BI that there are findings of grave misconduct against those involved in the pastillas scam. Grave misconduct comes with it the penalties of dismissal from office. I trust that the NBI will follow through and bring to justice all those responsible for lowering the draw bridge and draining the moat," Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who chairs the committee conducting the probe, said during her closing statement.
Javier favored by 'pastillas group' to conduct investigation — whistleblower
Javier revealed the findings of his committee after a second whistleblower, IO Jeffrey Dale Ignacio claimed that officials who were part of the money-making scheme, including alleged mastermind Marc Red Mariñas, were hoping that their administrative case would go to Javier rather than Aldwin Alegre who is also deputy commissioner for BI.
"They said Sir Toby is easier to talk to than Alegre," Ignacio told Hontiveros in Filipino.
When asked by Hontiveros to explain why Mariñas was hoping that the administrative case be referred to him and not Alegre, Javier said: "I have no idea."
"Maybe, while I was here at the bureau, some of them came to know me, and I came to know them, but that does not mean that when it comes to work we put our integrity as a person and as a deputy commissioner here in the bureau of immigration," he said in Filipino.
Hontiveros also pressed Javier on whether he was close to the Mariñas group, to which he answered that he came to know them when he first joined BI in April 2017.
The senator then showed three pictures of Javier with Mariñas, appearing to be on vacation in two and sharing a meal in another. However, Javier said that two of the pictures were taken during an official trip to South Korea while another showed him having a meal with Mariñas during another official trip to Davao where he was inspecting the airport.
Javier: No bias in my committee's investigation
"Commissioner Morente assigned me the task of being the chairman of the fact-finding committee for the pastillas because I think he trusted me. He trusted my integrity as a person, as a lawyer, as a professional," Javier defended.
"We really scrutinized the statements of Mr. Chiong and we dug into our records to find out the travel records of all those mentioned in the screenshots of the Viber groups as mentioned, as testified to by Mr. Chiong in the senate investigation," he added.
Citing the charges recommended by his committee, Javier emphasized that there was no bias in his conduct of the investigation.
When pressed about the lack of preventative suspensions enacted on the officials being investigated, Javier reiterated that the immigration bureau is not granted the authority to take such disciplinary actions.
"Those who are suspected of doing irregular acts in the bureau, we reassign them to positions where they won't be entitled to augmentation pay and those things ma'am. These are the only remedies we have under our power," he said.
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