EDITORIAL - Cleaning up the BI

Armed with the results of a probe conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation, President Aquino ended months of speculation and sacked Siegfred Mison the other day as head of the Bureau of Immigration, with the replacement sworn in even before the fired official had cleaned out his desk.

The Department of Justice announced that the new BI chief, Ronaldo Geron Jr., took his oath on Wednesday, the same day the NBI found Mison and 17 others liable for several escapes of a South Korean who was supposed to be deported for various offenses.

Like the Bureau of Customs, the BI has been hounded by allegations of anomalies, mostly involving the escapes and questionable releases of detainees. On July 12 last year, retired Armed Forces chief Ricardo David Jr. also quit as immigration chief amid scandals over the handling of detainees, including a Chinese wanted in his country for embezzling $100 million. Wang Bo was accused of bribing BI officials with P100 million for his freedom, and of agreeing to give $10 million to swing Congress to pass the Bangsamoro bill.

Scandals have plagued the BI under every administration. In July 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of former BI chief Zafiro Respicio for the flight of 11 Indians held for drug trafficking. The 1994 case, dubbed the “11 Little Indians” scandal, earned Respicio a prison term of six to 12 years, a fine of P5,000 and permanent disqualification from public office.

Probably because justice crawled so slowly, few lessons were learned from Respicio’s case. Questionable releases of detainees continued to be reported in the BI, and scandals kept tainting the bureau. As the accusations against Mison indicate, the anomalies did not stop under the tuwid na daan administration.

Can the bureau ever be cleaned up? The latest BI commissioner, a former deputy executive secretary, has a short time left to make a difference.