A response from the Bureau of Immigration

For tonight's Talkshow in Straight from the Sky we bring you a discussion on current national and local events...something that we do not often do on our show after all, this is the kind of fodder our televiewers get every single day on mainstream television. But we would like to know how the Filipino people think out there, hence we brought tonight the sounding board that most of our people use...AM radio.

To give us an insight of what their listeners think...and of course, their valued opinions...after all radio commentators are opinion makers in their own right, we have with us Mr. Cirse "Choy" Torralba who hosts the noontime show, "Tug-ani Ang Lungsod" from 11:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. over DyLA 909 AM. To give us an insight on those who listen to the radio in the evening, we brought in Mr. Elias Baquero who handles the nightly radio Talkshow entitled "Yagyagan" from 9:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. over DyDD 1260 Bantay Radyo. Between the two of them, we have covered a whole day of calls, comments and discussion on what's going on at the Capital Region and right here at home. So see them tonight on SkyCable's channel 15 at 8:00 p.m.

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Last Wednesday, we wrote about that ugly incident which happened to my brother-in-law Yuki Kono at the immigration counter at the Mactan International Airport when he left with his mother Sachiko for Tokyo, Japan. In response to that article, Bureau of Immigration & Deportation regional director Geronimo S. Rosas wrote me a lengthy letter and I've asked The FREEMAN editorial staff to reprint his letter in full tomorrow in the comments section.

Meanwhile, allow me to reprint excerpts of that letter so we can also make comments about this reply within the limited space available to us.

"Sir; I have read your column, "Shooting Straight" of The FREEMAN issue dated Aug. 10,2005, Wednesday, entitled "Wanted Efficient Immigration Officers", relating to an incident... concerning a Japanese national, Sachiko Kono, mother of your brother-in-law, Mr. Yuki Kono, who was a victim of alleged rudeness treatment and utmost lack of courtesy committed allegedly by our Immigration Officer Acari R. Datu-imam.

What director Rosas established clearly was on July 3, 2005 Immigration Officer Carmencita Salanguit admitted Mrs. Kono as a tourist under EO-408 for 21 days. It was an inadvertent mistake of the said Immigration Officer in admitting Mrs. Kono, which during that time there were several flights scheduled and it was successive; hence the Immigration Officer on duty at that time were tired and drained already. As we've pointed out clearly, there was a mistake and it has been officially admitted and hopefully that error gets fixed.

But last Aug. 9, 2005 when Mrs. Kono and my brother-in-law Yuki left for Japan, instead of fixing that inadvertent mistake, Mr. Datu-imam also failed to thoroughly (don't tell me he was also tired and drained?) check her passport and instead worsen the problem. Why duty supervisor Atty. Serafin Abellon also didn't fix this faux pas escapes me.

Director Rosas adds, "In an initial investigation, Mr. Datu-imam denied that he was rude and ill-mannered in conducting primary inspection on Mrs. Kuno who likewise could not speak English. He further explained that it was because he is a Muslim that he talked differently in a harsh voice and even sometimes sounds angry, which is the normal tone of his voice that usually cause misunderstanding. He clarified that he did not intend to offend anybody and that he was only performing his duties as an Immigration Officer."

Well, if indeed the loud tone of voice of Mr. Datu-imam has been the cause many misunderstandings, then it surprises me why until now the Bureau of Immigration hasn't transferred him to a less sensitive position? In fact, I have another letter e-mailed to me about an incident involving the other "Datu-imams" in our bureaucracy, but due to lack of space, I will reprint that letter in full in tomorrow's column, with the permission of the writer, except that he wishes to remain anonymous. I also got a lot of text messages about the rude behavior of Mr. Datu-imam, which means that this isn't an isolated incident.

There is no question that the BID like any gov't agency has its own set of problems. The devil really is in the nitty gritty details on how to fix those problems and the willingness of top officials to admit mistakes and find ways to solve them. By this alone, my confidence in the BID has been restored by the quick response of director Rosas and their admission to a mistake.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila's columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com