Clark Investors and Locators Association President Jeff Pradhan (left) and his girlfriend Marites Rosales show her stamped passport to Mabalacat, Pampanga tourism chief Guy Hilbero after they aborted a business trip to Hong Kong following a confrontation with Immigration officials at the Clark International Airport.
Photo by Ding Cervantes
CLARK FREEPORT – The president of the Clark Investors and Locators Association (CILA) here decried yesterday alleged abuses committed against him and his girlfriend by personnel of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) at the Clark International Airport (CIA) here.
CILA President Jeff Pradhan, director for business development of Peregrine International, said he dropped plans for a business-related trip last Thursday after his girlfriend, Marites Rosales, 26, was off-loaded from their Tiger Airways flight to Hong Kong even after her passport was already stamped for departure.
Guy Hilbero, tourism department chief of Mabalacat, Pampanga which covers the airport here, urged Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. to look into the case which, he stressed, “does not seem isolated.”
“Some Immigration officers at the airport seem to have developed an unusual delusion of power that they now wield arbitrarily. It’s getting to be scandalous and will eventually affect tourism,” he said.
Punto tried to get the side of Immigration officials at the airport, but no one was available. The operations chief of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) could also not be reached.
Pradhan said he and Rosales were bound for Hong Kong to witness a boxing bout upon the invitation of international boxing referee Bruce MacTavish. He said the trip was related to his firm’s plans to launch boxing promotional packages here.
Rosales said he was ahead of Pradhan at a counter line 8 a.m. last Thursday when an Immigration personnel they identified as Omar Yunus asked about “personal matters”, including her relationship with Pradhan before stamping her passport for departure.
Introducing himself as from CILA, Pradhan said he inquired from Yunus why Rosales was asked personal questions.
“That was when all the Immigration people there started being confrontational from beginning to end.
Most of the Immigration personnel refused to identify themselves and we came to know of their identities only from their name tags whom some of them tried to cover,” Pradhan said.
Pradhan said his query apparently infuriated Yunus who told him to go to the pre-departure area and leave behind his girlfriend.
Rosales said that while her passport was already stamped for departure, Yunus again told her to fill up a form, but she failed to state how much her plane ticket cost as Pradhan had paid for it.
Rosales said she was then told to go to the desk of another Immigration personnel she and her boyfriend later came to know as one Jeffrey Pinpin. She said Pinpin again asked her about her family and documents about her being a local student.
“I had been abroad before and I was never asked to produce such documents, so I said I did not carry such documents at that time,” Rosales said.
She said another Immigration personnel, a woman who covered her identification card on her breast when asked to be identified, demanded another requirement that included a seminar by the Commission on Filipino Overseas (CFO).
“She got furious when I said I would call Jeff (Pradhan) who was still in the pre-departure area. She said mine was a hopeless case,” she said.
Pradhan said he opted not to proceed with his trip to Hong Kong without Rosales.
When he asked to talk to higher airport authorities, Pradhan said one Zenaida Cruz showed up with a torn piece of paper on which she underscored with ballpen stating the need for Rosales to first seek certification from the CFO.
“She was evidently perturbed when she later saw my girlfriend’s passport already stamped for departure for Hong Kong,” Pradhan said.
He said that the CILA is also investigating the case amid similar grievances aired by other foreign investors in this Freeport.
