Aguirre still ‘person of interest’ in search for protector of alleged pastillas masterminds — Hontiveros

Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II is not off the hook yet in the pastillas scheme and the alleged corruption of the visa upon arrival (VUA) system for Chinese nationals, Senator Risa Hontiveros said on Monday.

Chairing the Senate committee on women that leads the probe on the issue, Hontiveros said Aguirre's issuance of Department Order No. 41 in 2017 "opened the floodgates to very lax oversight on the VUA and led to an institutionalization of that one-stop shop of corruption right in the Bureau of Immigration."

"Given the very lax oversight which followed [the issuance of D.O. 41], parang nasilip tuloy ito ng mga kawatan at nabutasan. So he remains, in a way, a person of interest in the minds of the committee as far as searching for the protector nitong mag-amang Mariñas," Hontiveros said in an interview on CNN-Philippines.

The senator was referring to former BI Port Operations Division chief Marc Red Mariñas and his father Maynardo Mariñas who was former Special Operations Communications Unit head.

She said the appointment of the father-and-son tandem in the said positions weakened the checks and balances between the two BI offices which handle the processing and issuance of visas upon arrival.

The whistleblowers who attended the Senate inquiry previously named Red Mariñas as the "boss" of the pastillas group—an allegation denied by the accused.

Aside from the pastillas scheme which supposedly allowed Chinese high rollers and offshore gaming workers to skirt the immigration process in exchange for bribes, Hontiveros said the VUA has also been corrupted.

'Fishing expedition'

Reached for his comments, Aguirre accused Hontiveros of "witch-hunting" and going on a "fishing expedition" against him in her investigation.

Claiming there is no evidence connecting him to the bribery scheme, Aguirre said Hontiveros wants to retaliate against him for the wiretapping complaint he filed against her in 2017.

Aguirre claimed in response that Hontiveros "could not accept the fact that up to this late stage of the hearing of her committee, not a scintilla of evidence was presented to show my involvement in the so-called pastillas scheme."

In the previous hearings, Aguirre said the D.O. 41 was issued in 2017 because former Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo kept on insisting on the need for a visa upon arrival system to attract more tourists.

Aguirre, previously tagged by media practitioner Ramon Tulfo as the protector of the pastillas scheme syndicate, also confirmed that he has appointed the younger Mariñas but not the father. He denied the allegation that he was a protector of the alleged pastillas group.

BI Deputy Commissioner Tobias Javier said it was Commissioner Jaime Morente who appointed the older Mariñas to the BI SOCU.

Hontiveros, meanwhile, said she thinks Morente is coordinating well with the Senate investigation.

"So far, I have sensed his cooperation with the committee and I am sure that the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) and the Office of the Ombudsman, the DOJ itself can very well speak for themselves as far as Commissioner Morente is concerned," she said.

Hontiveros said the committee will further scrutinize the VUA as a separate illegal revenue stream of corrupt BI officials, aside from the pastillas scheme.

In the process of doing so, those who crafted the D.O. 41 shall be summoned.

"Ang susunod na hakbang ay tawagin ang mga arkitekto ng Department Order 41 na naging legal basis para sa visa upon arrival," she said.

Hontiveros said the corrupt officials' "income" from VUA amounts to P2 billion. She also stressed that the VUA seems to be the "visa of choice" in trafficking women for prostitution in the Philippines.

The outbound trafficking of Filipino women to other countries will also be looked into by the panel led by the senator. — RSJ, GMA News