Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero on Sunday, December 3 said he is confident that the bicameral conference committee tackling the proposed 2024 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) will accede to the provision inserted by the Senate that would allow Filipino passengers to reimburse their expenses if they are offloaded from their flights due to prolonged interrogation by the Bureau of Immigration (BI).

Escudero said it is only appropriate for the government to reimburse the more than 32,000 affected passengers in 2022 who were not able to board their flights especially after being interrogated and unfairly profiled by immigration officers in the guise of fighting human trafficking.

It was Escudero who proposed the special provision of such budget in the 2024 budget of the BI during the deliberations at the Senate. The senator explained the proposed reimbursement scheme will not need additional budgetary requirement since the money will be charged against the BI’s earnings from collections.

“Buo ang paniniwala ko na tatanggapin ito sa bicam dahil ang ginalaw ko lamang na pondo ay iyong 10 percent na nakokolekta ng BI na hindi naman nila nagagamit at binabalik naman nila kada taon sa National Treasury (I have full trust that this will be accepted by the bicam because the only fund that I tinkered was the 10 percent collected by the BI that they were not able to use and which they return annually to the National Treasury),” Escudero said in a Radio DZBB interview.

“Ang overtime pay ng ating mga immigration officers, mga ibang gastusin ng BI para maayos ang kanilang computers, camera, etc. hindi ko naman po ginalaw iyun. So walang nabawasan, walang nasaktan (I didn’t touch the OT pay of our immigration officers, and other expenses of the BI intended to fix their computers, camera,s etc. I didn’t touch that. So nothing was slashed, no one was harmed),” he pointed out.

“Ika nga, imbes na bumalik sa Treasury, eh ‘di ibigay na lang natin sa mga na-offload ng walang sapat na basehan (As I said, instead of returning it to the Treasury, let’s just give it to those passengers who were offloaded without any reason),” the lawmaker added.

Based on the BI’s records, a total of 32,404 Filipino passengers were not allowed to proceed with their flights last year, of which 472 were found to be victims of human trafficking or illegal recruitment.

Escudero said this particular budget allocation for the reimbursement of offloaded passengers have a retroactive provision, allowing those who were offloaded in the past to also claim reimbursement.

“Nasa sa BI na iyan kung ano ang ire-require nila sa mga pasahero? Ticket ba? Pruweba na inoffload sila, petsa dapat na sila ay umalis, magkano nagastos sa tiket, etc. Mga requirements iyan na pwedeng ipataw ng DOJ at BI (It’s up to the BI to come up with the requirements from the passengers? Tickets? Or any proof they were offloaded, date when they should have traveled, how much they spent for their tickets, etc. Requirements that the Department of Justice and the BI can come up with),” he said.

Moving forward, Escudero said the DOJ and the BI should come up with a policy guideline or check list in screening outbound Filipino passengers to protect them against human trafficking.

“As soon as meron na silang patakaran, definite check list kung sino nga ba ang ma-offload o hindi, iyon ang magtutulak sa kanila na gawin na yan ngayon na babayaran nila ang sinumang i-offload nila (As soon as they have a guideline, a definite check list of who should be offloaded or not, that will push them now to pay those whom they decide to offload),” he added.

Likewise, Escudero said he hopes that President Marcos will not veto the said provision since the allocation amounting to P200-million is but a small fragment of the government’s P5.7-trillion budget next year.

“Maliit na halaga lamang itong P200 million kaugnay sa ng mahigit P5-trillion budget ng pamahalaan at nakabase pa ito sa income ng BI, hindi nakabase sa bagong buwis na kokolektahin ng BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue), kaya wala akong nakikita na masasaktan ang gobyerno rito sa ating panukala (The P200-million is just a small amount in the whole P5-trillion budget of the government and this is even based on the income of the BI, not even based on the new taxes to be paid by the BIR, that’s why I don’t see this proposal putting a huge dent on the government),” he said.