While it was carrying out the difficult task of implementing travel restrictions due to the COVID-19, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) was hounded by serious allegations of corruption against its airport personnel accused of facilitating the unimpeded entry of foreign nationals in exchange for a fee.
The pastillas scheme was exposed during a Senate hearing in late February when a whistleblower confessed to participating in the pastillas scheme involving immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) who allegedly profited from bribes earned from the racket which allowed aliens, mostly Chinese, to enter the country unmolested.
Incidentally, the scheme was uncovered barely a few days before the Duterte administration placed the entire Luzon area under a lockdown or enhanced community quarantine which resulted in the closure of the country’s borders to foreign travelers.
The pandemic naturally caused many of the BI’s frontline officers to become nervous as they feared getting infected by the coronavirus while they are on duty at the airport.
Although most of the airlines had suspended their flights to the Philippines, the NAIA had to continue operations because of the many repatriation and sweeper flights that flew Filipinos and foreigners in and out of the country during the lockdown period.
Several immigration officers at the NAIA were reported to have contracted the virus, though all have recovered.
It was learned that due to travel restrictions, the number of international travelers who entered and exited the country during the year dropped by a whopping 95 percent compared to last year.
There has been a noticeable, but only slight, increase in the number of arriving and departing passengers in recent months as the country began to gradually reopen its borders to foreigners.
The “pastillas” scheme was forgotten for several months as the government and public attention was focused on the pandemic until two months ago when the Senate resumed its hearing with a new whistleblower surfacing to corroborate his colleague’s testimony about the racket’s modus operandi and identify the BI personnel involved.
Subsequently, a total of 83 BI officers were charged by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) before the Office of the Ombudsman, all of whom were later preventively suspended for 60 days without pay.
BI officers at the NAIA admit that their morale is at an all-time low because of the pastillas scam issue and the immense damage that it did to the bureau’s reputation.
“Not since 2017 when we were deprived of our augmentation pay has our morale been very low. We can only hope that we will rise from these crises stronger and prouder of our roles as gatekeepers of the country,” said a veteran immigration officer assigned at the bureau’s port operations division (POD) who sought anonymity.
He then echoed the calls of his co-workers for Congress to prioritize the passage of a new Philippine Immigration law that will replace the antiquated 1940 immigration act.
"Only the enactment of a new immigration law that will upgrade the salary scales of immigration employees will these corrupt practices be discouraged and reduced, if not totally prevented," he said.