Bureau of Immigration INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ ALEXIS CORPUZ
Bureau of Immigration (BI) Ports Operation Division chief Marc Red Mariñas has been named as the BI’s concurrent officer-in-charge deputy commissioner, BI commissioner Jaime Morente disclosed on Wednesday.
Morente said that Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra appointed Mariñas to the position following the resignation of former deputy commissioner Atty. Aimee Torrecampo-Neri.
Mariñas now joins Morente and BI Deputy Commissioner J. Tobias Javier as members of the three-member board of commissioners (BOC) that hears and decides deportation cases against aliens charged with violating Philippine immigration laws.
According to Morente, Mariñas is a seasoned immigration officer, having served the bureau for more than 15 years. He headed the BI’s Ports Operation Division (POD) since July 2016.
His office, Morente said, was credited with preventing the entry of thousands of undesirable aliens into the country.
“Mariñas has under his administrative supervision more than a thousand immigration officers manning the different airports and seaports throughout the country,” the BI chief said in a statement.
The POD has also been in the forefront of the BI’s campaign against human trafficking through rigid screening of departing Filipino tourists, Morente said.
“Records show that last year POD port personnel deferred the departure of more than 37,000 passengers on suspicion they could be victims of human trafficking and illegal recruitment syndicates,” he said. /jpv