Offloading of bank exec in launder scam violates human rights– lawyer

OFFLOADED FROM PLANE Maia Santos-Deguito, manager of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. branch on Jupiter Street in Makati City, walks away after being offloaded from a Philippine Airlines flight bound for Tokyo on Friday. She was barred from leaving the country ahead of a Senate investigation into her alleged involvement in an $81-million cross-border remittance transaction. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The immigration bureau’s order to stop Maia Santos-Deguito, the bank manager involved in a money-laundering controversy, from leaving the Philippines was a violation of constitutional and human rights, her lawyer said on Saturday.

Deguito, manager of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch on Jupiter Street in Makati, was offloaded from Philippine Airlines flight PR 432 bound for Japan on Friday with her husband and son.

READ: RCBC branch manager barred from leaving PH | RCBC branch head: Rogue or scapegoat

High-profile lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said the offloading traumatized Deguito’s 10-year-old child, who was about to go to Disneyland in Tokyo for his birthday.

“We condemn in the strongest terms possible the blatant violation of the Constitutional and Human Rights of our client, Ms. Maia Santos-Deguito, perpetrated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Immigration (BID), in forcibly offloading her, her husband and ten-year-old son from a plane at the last minute that it was about to leave for Japan,” Topacio said in a statement.

“The heavy-handed manner by which the offloading was done, which would not be out of place in a police state such as North Korea, has traumatized not only Ms. Santos-Deguito and her husband, but worse, her child of tender years, who kept crying throughout the ordeal and even all the way back home, as he could not, in his young mind, understand why his plane going to Disneyland left without him,” he added.

The offloading came days before a scheduled Senate investigation next week on the alleged laundering of $81 million by unknown computer hackers from the Bangladesh Bank’s account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through the Philippine financial system.

READ: Key personalities invited in Senate probe on money laundering

Deguito, who allegedly allowed the transfer of money into five accounts in her branch without scrutiny, is already under probe by the RCBC management and invited in the Senate hearing on Tuesday next week.

Topacio said he was able to talk to immigration officers, particularly Commissioner Roni Geron, who supposedly admitted that he “hastily issued a last-minute ‘lookout order.’”

“I was able to talk to the immigration officers who were executing the monstrosity against my client, and they said that they were not aware of any bases for preventing my client from leaving, as there are no cases filed against my client and no hold-departure orders,” Topacio said.

“Geron admitted to me that there are no cases and no hold-departure order against my client. Although he is also a lawyer, I discussed with him the legal ramifications of the BID’s (Bureau of Immigration) actions,” he added.

In a radio interview on Friday, Deguito said she had no plans of escaping despite death threats she had been receiving since reports of the alleged money laundering scheme broke out.

READ: Bank exec in launder scam denies plan to escape

Condemning a “brazen disregard” of his client’s fundamental right, Topacio said they will make necessary legal actions against certain officials involved in the incident.

“What is scary is that there seems to be a pattern of such transgressions of Constitutional rights being continuously done by the BID in other cases. Therefore, we shall be constrained to file the necessary charges against acting Justice Secretary Emmanuel Caparas, acting Immigration Commissioner Roni Geron and the immigration officers who offloaded our client, before the Ombudsman (for graft), the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Human Rights, the Supreme Court (for contempt and disbarment) and the ordinary courts (for damages and child abuse),” he said.

“These officials who show no hesitation of running roughshod over people’s rights should be taught a lesson: while they think that under the present administration their evil actions may be tolerated and even abetted, the cases taking them to task for their misdeeds will long outlive the present government and justice will be attained under a new dispensation,” Topacio added. CDG