4
Cebu immigration agents face extortion charges
By Jhunnex Napallacan
Visayas Bureau
Posted date:
October 25, 2007
CEBU CITY, Philippines -- Four Immigration
agents in Cebu face graft charges before the
Visayas Ombudsman after they were caught by the
National Bureau of Investigation allegedly
extorting P500,000 from a Korean national.
Immigration
Commissioner Marcelino Libanan on Thursday
placed the four Bureau of Immigration agents on
floating status pending investigation by a
special team that he said he would be sending to
Cebu from Manila.
On Wednesday,
the NBI in Central Visayas filed with the
Ombudsman bribery and graft charges against
three agents -- immigration officer Dilausan
Sarip Montor and confidential agents Daniel
Gumba and Mabert Diao Impas. A fourth accused,
Immigration agent Donna Deriaga, was identified
as the one who arranged the alleged payoff
between Montor and Korean businessman Lee Dong
Bum over the latter's supposed immigration law
violations.
NBI operatives
arrested the three on Monday during an
entrapment operation inside a coffee shop in the
village of Lahug, Cebu City but released them
after 48 hours on Wednesday.
The NBI
conducted the operation after receiving a
complaint from Lee who claimed that immigration
agents had demanded P500,000 from him as
settlement for alleged violations of immigration
laws.
The NBI agents
caught the three in the act of accepting
P150,000 as partial payment of the amount
demanded by the BI agents.
The alleged
violation of immigration laws turned out to have
been committed by another Korean, Lee said in
his affidavit-complaint.
The NBI did
not arrest Deriaga but they charged her with
graft and corruption and violation of the code
of conduct and ethical standards for public
officials and employees.
Libanan said
over radio station dyLa here that he formed the
panel composed of prosecutors from the
Department of Justice detailed with the
Immigration office in Manila immediately after
the NBI informed him of the alleged extortion.
He said the
team might come to Cebu or they would require
the accused agents to go to Manila to answer the
charges.
Libanan,
however, said the bureau has yet to decide
whether to place the four agents under
preventive suspension pending the evaluation of
the case against them.
In the
meantime, Libanan said, the four could still
report for duty but they would be placed on
floating status pending the completion of the
investigation.
