Immigration concerns

The new Immigration Commissioner is not running for senator, but if he were, he would be a winner. He is a charming fellow, friendly, and comes across as a very sincere public servant. As BI head, he the most feared and evaded by the more than 80,000 illegal aliens in this country – an image he wants to change in line with his administration’s thrust to make the bureau foreign visitor-friendly and service-oriented.

Bureau of Immigration and Deportation chief Alpio F. Fernandez, Jr., is just two months in office, but his presence is being felt. His past experiences as mayor of Dagupan City and Department of Local Governments undersecretary is serving him in good stead. He has been in close contact with all sorts of people, who feel at ease upon meeting him. Al told media people at the Bulong-Pulungan sa Westin Philippine Plaza Tuesday that he is continuing the programs started by Commissioner Andrea Domingo, who is running for mayor of Tarlac. Among these are fastracking of fact-finding procedures, the decentralization of immigration offices, and doing more simplified linkages with foreign chambers of commerce and investment associations. Making the BI’s image friendlier is the new Alien Certificate Registration system. The ACR before, he said, was paper-based, and took a long time to process; now computerized credit-card type IDs will tell if the card-holders look like the photographs in the card.

Al described the BI as an administrative arm of the government in the implementation of immigration policies. Since September 11, its monitoring work over terrorist suspects, drug, human and child trafficking has been strengthened. These activities are monitored in cooperation with different agencies of the government and foreign embassies and in the near future, through bilateral agreements with members of the European Community. The bureau has 800 personnel and are assisted by deputized persons who are given special training in profiling activities.

The guarding of coastal areas (the Philippines, with 40,000 kilometers of coastline has the longest shoreline in the world) is done with the Philippine Marines, 20 of them in Zamboanga, and 25 in Palawan. Agreements with coastal town mayors put illegal entries in check.

At the news forum, the commissioner brought BI offices to elucidate on immigration concerns. These were Atty. Ronaldo Ledesma, chief of board of special inquiry, Atty. Edgardo Mendoza, chief of immigration regulation division, Ferdinand Sampol, head of immigration at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminals 1 and 2, Roy Almoro, BI executive director, and Atty. Arthel Caronongan, associate commissioner.

The most number of illegal aliens found in Sarangani – about 12,000 Indonesians, and a good number in Palawan and Zamboanga. It may or may not be trouble for the BI, but these aliens have been staying in the coastal areas for decades and are now mainly children of the first settlers, and they do not care to become Filipino citizens. The reason for that, said Al is the registration fee of P1,080 which the farming families do not have.

There are 80,000 registered aliens in the country, but there is a great number of undocumented aliens, too. Attorney Mendoza said of the overstaying aliens, majority are Chinese, followed by Americans, including Filipino-Americans, Japanese and Koreans.

There are 177 illegal aliens housed in the BI’s detention centers, on charges including possession of drug and trafficking. The terms of their release are done with their embassies.