Probe launched into trafficking at Manila airport

Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Jaime Morante has ordered an investigation of alleged involvement of some immigration officers assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in large-scale human trafficking.
Acting BI Port Operations Division (POD) chief Grifton Medina yesterday disclosed that Morente’s order was in reaction to President Rodrigo Duterte’s special envoy to China Ramon Tulfo’s column in Manila Times alleging that several middle-level immigration officials are leaders of a human trafficking syndicate at the NAIA.
At the same time, Medina said as head of the POD, he was taking full responsibility, even as he urged that it would be to the best interest of everyone if evidence was presented and formal complaints were filed first. “My stand as chief of the (division is that) I remain accountable and responsible for alleged incidents of human trafficking and even for those incidents that happened before, even if they did not happen during my time,” he told Manila Times in an exclusive interview. Medina said it was possible that there were cases of human trafficking at the NAIA but added that they were isolated incidents.
In his column, Tulfo said the human trafficking syndicate at the NAIA nets P10mn to P50mn a day.
But Medina said the figures were “mathematically impossible,” considering the accomplishments of BI in preventing human trafficking, which enabled the Philippines to retain its Tier 1 rating for three consecutive years, 2016 to 2018, in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report.
Tier 1 rating implies that a country complies with the minimum standards set by the United States Trafficking Victim Protection Act.
Immigration records showed that from January 2016 to February 2019, the Traffic Enforcement Control Unit has deferred the departure of 111,912 passengers at the NAIA and other airports and seaports.
“If we have no accomplishments and we are not on Tier 1 status, that’s possible. The figures do not match. It’s mathematically impossible for me,” Medina said.