Bigwigs attend Subic maul hearing

Last year’s Subic Freeport mauling of a local resident by an American businessman is drawing such personalities as the Bataan governor and a hard-hitting columnist, so much so that Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) Commissioner Andrea Domingo cannot help herself but to be present, too.

In a surprise development, no less than Domingo herself inspected the documents and questioned the lawyers of businessman Eduardo Prieto and American investor Curtis Perry, thereby expediting the checking of BID records on Perry’s status in the country. Initially, records indicate that Perry has not been following the law which mandates the annual filing of an Alien Certificate of Registration report to the BID.

"This is a no-win situation for the Bureau so we have to implement the law and I hope you will respect that," Domingo told the parties before BID preliminary investigation hearing officer lawyer Arvin Cesar Santos.

Santos was about to conclude the first hearing for the possible deportation of Perry after Prieto filed an "undesirability" case against the American citing earlier incidence of physical abuse of Filipinos. When Domingo came, Santos said the Bureau will determine Perry’s status in the country.

Prieto had filed the case before the BID aside from the attempted homicide case pending before the Olongapo prosecutors office he and Perry had a confrontation inside a Subic bar. Perry is a trustee of Brent School where Prieto’s children are studying.

Witnessing yesterday’s proceedings were Bataan Gov. Leonardo Roman and columnist Ramon Tulfo and a certain Captain Mamon of SBMA, also a Brent trustee who all came to provide moral support to Perry. The next hearing is set on March 5.

Domingo’s intervention sent the Bureau’s records chief coming to the hearing to produce the records of Perry. As it turned out, Perry failed to surrender to the Bureau his Special Registration Certificate (SRC) for which his Alien Certificate of Registration (ACR) will be based.

While in the country, Perry is supposed to present his ACR to the BID annually. His ACR had no marking since it was issued in 1995.

"We are looking into the possibility that Perry does not have to submit the annual ACR report when he became a Subic investor but that (becoming a Subic investor) only happened in 1999," said Santos. But according to the BID’s records chief, other Subic investors have been filing their annual ACR report with the bureau.

The BID is also looking into the allegations by Prieto’s camp that Perry’s company, a consultancy firm, has no tax records.

"We decide matters like this on case to case basis," said Santos refusing to say if the extreme penalty of deportation or merely paying the fines will suffice. — Jose Aravilla