US denounced for deporting pilots

Two congressmen denounced yesterday the deportation by United States authorities of two Filipino pilots wrongly accused of carrying the deadly anthrax bacteria.

Negros Occidental Rep. Apolinario Lozada Jr., chairman of the House foreign relations committee, said the decision of American immigration officers to deport Bernie Crisostomo and Wel Come even after they and their luggage were found negative for anthrax "is revolting."

It shows the low regard the US has for Filipinos who have always been supportive of its initiatives, especially the global campaign against terrorism launched in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on its territory, Lozada said.

He understood the detention and interrogation of the two by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who received information from Manila but later turned out to be a hoax that the pilots were carriers of anthrax.

What is incomprehensible is the decision by US immigration officials to deport the two and cancel their 10-year tourist visas even after the FBI had verified that its information came from a prankster, he said.

Airing his own indignation over the incident, Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco said the deportation of Crisostomo and Come would have been justified had they been found to be anthrax carriers or they had defective travel documents.

"But they were innocent and their travel papers were in order. In fact, they had 10-year tourist visas, which few Filipinos can apply and be qualified for," he said.

Cuenco lambasted Philippine diplomatic personnel in the US for failing to help the two pilots during their entire ordeal.

"It is infuriating that our two countrymen were handcuffed upon arrival on US soil, interrogated, detained, and then deported without any embassy or consulate representative helping them," he said.

Crisostomo and Come were to take a refresher course in a Kansas flying school before taking up jobs in Nigeria. The course was arranged by their Nigerian employer, who provided them with one-way air tickets to the US, where they were to get tickets to their final destination. — Jess Diaz