EXTRAORDINARY VIGILANCE

January 12, 2025 Opinion

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) is in the limelight once again as it continues to conduct operations to arrest, detain and eventually deport illegal aliens found staying in the country either of their own volition or under duress or
coercion by criminal groups working in illegal activities similar to what was conducted by Philippine offshore gaming
operators (Pogos) or worse, scam operations that victimize foreigners in other countries. Its latest accomplishment
is the arrest of around 400 illegal aliens allegedly involved in scam operations here in the country and found to be
conducting their nefarious activity in a barangay in Parañaque City. ‘

The successful operation is to be lauded and the efforts of the BI particularly its Immigration and Intelligence Division, Fugitive Search Unit and Anti-terrorist group in detecting and monitoring the presence of these illegal aliens in the country is to be commended. However, if the government thru the BI is really keen on protecting the territorial integrity of the Republic as well as the welfare of its citizenry then its vigilance against illegal aliens entering the country should be that of extraordinary. In this manner not only should the BI be able to detect and
monitor the presence of illegal aliens here in the Philippines but it should also be able to detect and monitor these illegal aliens even before they actually enter into the country and prevent them from doing so.

This will need of course the help and assistance of other countries where these illegal aliens originate or transit so that early on they can be apprehended and sent back or deported before they can set foot in the Philippines. This will
require inter-country cooperation and collaboration and since it has already been established that many of these
illegal aliens conducting criminal activities in the country are in fact Chinese then it is only logical that the engagement for collaboration and cooperation by the Philippines would be with China. Is this doable? Of course! This can be done thru bilateral agreements entered into by the country and China and the BI can jumpstart the
process by engaging with their Chinese counterparts to start the process.

This is needed for the extraordinary vigilance to succeed against these illegal aliens. It is also vital that these illegal aliens are thwarted from entering the country since if they succeed in entering the Philippines illegally and begin
operating their nefarious criminal activities then our peace and order is already affected. But if as a proactive measure the BI and its partners are able to prevent the entry into the country of these illegal aliens then they would have succeeded in their campaign to effect extraordinary vigilance against those who would attempt to undermine the peace and order of the country.

It can be recalled that when the government decided to crack down against Pogos everyone was surprised that there were thousands of illegal aliens, not only Chinese, who were discovered to be involved in these online gaming activities and since there was no honest to goodness inter-agency or inter-office cooperation between those who were
authorized to regulate Pogos and those tasked to monitor the involvement of foreigners in these activities, the BI for
instance, then the operation of online gambling (Pogos) transformed into an activity for criminal groups that made
oodles of money out of the misery of their victims, mostly foreigners.

The BI for its part is quite capable of implementing and undertaking measures that would prevent the entry into the
country of illegal aliens. The quandary of the bureau lies in the fact that perhaps the integrity of their in-house
operations might be suspect. What this means is that perhaps some of their personnel are part of the reason why these illegal aliens are able to enter into the country without raising an alarm. So apart from coming up with plans to collaborate and partner with their foreign counterparts on how to deter illegal aliens from entering the country perhaps the BI should also undertake housecleaning to rid its ranks of officers and employees in cahoots with these criminal groups who bring illegal aliens into the Philippines