Assuming that the tale of how dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo, and her siblings escaped is true, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) could not have intercepted them unless they revised their rules on pre-departure inspection, its top official said.
"In our existing memorandum circular on pre-departure inspection, vessels which are non-common carrier(s) are not included in the PDI and that is the reason why we are now revising the circular so the Coast Guard will have (a) role in the enforcement in these kind of vessels," PCG Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan said.
He disclosed this after he was asked by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III during the deliberations of the upper chamber's finance subcommittee of the Department of Transportation's (DOTr) budget if they could have intercepted Guo and her cohorts during their escape from Manila via a yacht.
Guo, during the hearing of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality on Monday, September 9, confirmed that she and her sister Shiela Guo, who earlier testified how they “escaped,” that they left the country by sea.
According to Alice, they left the Philippines by boat. She said they boarded a yacht in a port in Metro Manila.
Gavan said that they intend to make the revision effective by October which is to include non-common carriers in the implementation of their pre-departure inspection.
He was then asked by Pimentel if they had the legal basis to do it and if they no longer needed a law to make the revision to which Gavan replied in the affirmative.
"Therefore, you could've done that, even before, why do we need an Alice Guo incident before we can anticipate such a scenario and cover it?" Pimentel asked.
In Gavan's response, he said: "The regulation was made in 2009 and I'm taking my role now to revise."
"With this development, the Coast Guard recognizes that we should adapt, we should do more. So we'll be coordinating with Marina to come up with better regulations to cover this," he added.
Pimentel then acknowledged Gavan's honesty that there is no lack of legal basis for the PCG to have acted and it's just that their regulations were not able to anticipate the incident.
"So may nakakita ng butas and I’m sure di lang sila ang gumamit ng butas na yan. So ganun pala kaporous talaga ang ating boundaries, ang ating mga borders, ang ating, ang ating coasts (So someone saw a loophole and I'm sure they were not the only ones who used it. So that's how porous are boundaries, borders, and coasts are)," he said.
Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, who presided over the budget hearing, moved for the submission of DOTr's proposed P180.89-billion budget for 2025 for plenary approval.
Ejercito said the DOTr plays a vital role in stimulating economic growth in the country. With the establishment of infrastructure, it will spread out development, stimulate economic growth, and it will give opportunities to every province to grow