BY Osias Osorio
THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) recently arrested two illegal aliens before they could board their outbound flights at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3.
BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado identified the passengers as Ram Baldev, an Indian citizen, 43, who was apprehended on October 23, and Peter Anthony McFarlane, 65, an Australian who was intercepted the next day.
“A check of our travel database later confirmed both of them have no arrival record, thus bolstering our suspicion that they are illegal entrants,” the BI chief said.
McFarlane and Baldev were turned over to personnel of the border control and intelligence unit (BCIU) and transferred to the BI detention facility in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City pending deportation proceedings.
“They will be included in our blacklist and banned from re-entering the Philippines after they are deported,” Viado said.
Baldev was stopped from boarding a Jetstar flight to Singapore for having no arrival stamp on his passport.
He claimed that he arrived in the country sometime in 2018 and never departed since then. BI officials suspect he may have used a different travel document or identity during his arrival.
McFarlane had booked a Cebu Pacific flight to Melbourne but was also denied departure clearance for having a fake arrival stamp on his passport.
He alleged that he arrived aboard a yacht in Zamboanga City last October 17 but a check of the BI’s database yielded no such record.
Upon checking with the BI’s forensic documents laboratory, it was confirmed that the immigration stamp affixed to his passport was fake.
