SEN. Grace Poe said the Bureau of Immigration (BI) has proposed to set up a facility where individuals can be processed before boarding private planes to prevent human trafficking, but the project has no budget yet.
The senator, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, on Wednesday defended the proposed budget of the agency.
She said that the initiative “seeks to prevent the entry of smuggled goods in the country and eliminate trafficking in persons.”
Sen. Grace Poe. PHOTO: MIKE ALQUINTO
“Unfortunately, the budget for the facility has not yet been included in the budget of the Department of Transportation,” Poe said.
“In the meantime, the BI has mobile devices that will check the identity of the passengers of private planes and if their documents are customs compliant,” she added.
Sen. Raffy Tulfo, meanwhile, urged the BI to put closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at the immigration booth to record all conversations of the passenger and immigration officer at the airport to avoid possible complaints.
The senator raised the issues of offloaded luggage and passengers being held at Immigration.
“What if we just put a CCTV camera in the immigration booth and while the interview is going on, it is recorded so that if there is a complaint, it can be reviewed?” he asked.
“Because without it, it is the passenger’s word against the immigration officer’s word, so the immigration officer’s word would carry more weight. But if there is a CCTV camera that records all the conversations, blow by blow, the playing field would be leveled,” Tulfo said.
Poe said there were 20,349 persons offloaded this year for various reasons such as doubtful purpose of travel, insufficient travel or supporting documents, non-compliance with previous deferred departure requirements, misrepresentation or withholding of material information about travel, presentation of fraudulent or tampered supporting documents, and refusal to undergo secondary inspection.
Be the first to comment