Immigration on alert for Roberto Ongpin aide

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has issued an “immigration lookout bulletin” on Josephine Manalo, the personal secretary of businessman Roberto Ongpin and an official in the latter’s various companies, but would not prevent her from leaving the country.

Lawyer Grace Lara, BI head executive assistant, said the bulletin was issued on Tuesday by BI Associate Commissioner Siegfred Mison on orders of Justice Secretary De Lima who earlier turned down a Senate request to place Manalo, Delta Ventures Resources Inc. president, in the bureau’s watch list.

De Lima denied the Senate’s request, citing the temporary restraining order issued by the Supreme Court on the Department of Justice circular prescribing the rules for issuing watch list, hold departure and allow departure orders.

Lara explained that the lookout bulletin was the first of its kind to be issued by the bureau and that it does not direct immigration officers at the airports and seaports to prevent persons who are subjects of such bulletins from leaving the country.

“This bulletin is for monitoring purposes only. If she is spotted at the airport, we will inform the Senate and DOJ that she is about to leave the country,” she said.

The BI official cited De Lima’s written directive to the bureau “to be on the lookout for Manalo should she pass through the Immigration counters in any of our international airports and/or seaports.”

De Lima earlier said she had no choice but to turn down the Senate’s request after the Supreme Court barred her from issuing watch list orders while the TRO is still in effect.

It will be recalled that the high court had granted the petition of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel to issue the TRO and declare DOJ circular No. 41 unconstitutional.

De Lima said the TRO enjoined the DOJ not only from implementing watch list orders but also from implementing the circular itself.

Previously, the BI could bar persons who were subjects of watch list orders from leaving unless their travel was cleared by the agency that sought their inclusion on the watch list.

The watch list orders were mostly issued against persons who are subjects of criminal complaints before the various prosecutor’s offices and courts.