MANILA (Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network): The immigration officer, who reportedly subjected a Filipina traveller to a lengthy interview that later made her miss her flight, has been relieved from his post and reassigned to a back office.
Bureau of Immigration (BI) spokesperson Dana Sandoval on Friday (March 17) said this was done to give way to the ongoing investigation of the agency into the incident, which first earned the attention of the public through a now-viral TikTok video posted by lifestyle blogger Cham Tanteras.
Tanteras said the officer bombarded her with a string of “irrelevant questions” like if her parents were still together and if she had brought her school yearbook with her.
“The immigration officer was relieved from his post from the frontline, and he was transferred to a back-end office already after the incident,” Sandoval told INQUIRER.net over the phone.
Should the officer be found remiss of his duty, Sandoval said he could be slapped with administrative sanctions based on civil service rules.
She further noted that it was no less than BI commissioner Norman Tansingco who directly called the officer to explain his side of the story.
“He said he did not require a yearbook from the passenger, but of course, the holding of the secondary inspection is really not the issue in our opinion. It’s really the manner that it was conducted,” Sandoval said.
She noted that there could have been a lapse on the part of the officer in explaining to the traveller what was happening and why the questions were being asked during the interview.
“That’s why there was a big fuss about it. Maybe because it was not explained properly to the passenger the reasons why she was undergoing secondary inspection and the relevance of the questions that the immigration officer asked,” she explained.
Sandoval, however, stressed that conducting secondary inspections in the immigration process is still necessary given the alarming number of Filipinos falling victim to human trafficking and illegal recruitment.
She had also clarified that yearbooks or diplomas are not required for travellers departing the country.
