Former NCCA exec Alvarez: Failure of communication behind hold departure order

Former National Commission on Culture and Arts (NCCA) executive director Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, failure of communication was the reason she was prohibited from leaving the country on June 10.

Guidote-Alvarez was on her way to the UN General Assembly’s thematic debate in New York on June 12, where she would deliver a speech as president of the Philippine Center of the International Theater Institute and the ITI's Cultural Identity and Development Committee.

However, she was prevented by officers of the Bureau of Immigration from boarding a flight to Hong Kong.

"You can imagine my shock and dismay that I was barred from leaving on a mission of service to the country," Guidote-Alvarez said in an email to GMA News Online.

"It was really failure of communication," said Guidote-Alvarez, who pleaded with the BI officers to let her go. "I said 'Please, you can't hold me. You know, the news about the Bureau of Immigration is that you allow criminals to get off and you are preventing me from upholding the country's mission,'" she said.

She showed them Sandiganbayan decision as well as the invitation from the UNESCO Director-General, Dr. Irina Bokova. "But at the airport, nobody was reading the case or the invitation. I had to pay for a whole new ticket to catch up, para hindi mapahiya ang bayan," she said.

Guidote-Alvarez explained that she was on a hold departure order "long ago," when she was charged with Failure of Accountable Officer to Render Accounts under Article 218 of the Revised Penal Code.

The criminal case was dismissed and the hold departure order lifted in a decision promulgated by the Sandiganbayan Third Division on April 10, a copy of which Guidote-Alvarez sent to GMA News Online.

Not National Artist Award case

"It's true I was barred, but it was not the Supreme Court case on the National Artist award," Guidote-Alvarez told GMA News Online in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

She corrected a previous report that said she was included in the Bureau of Immigration's hold departure order due to a Supreme Court decision in 2009 that stopped former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from conferring the rank of National Artist to seven people, including Guidote-Alvarez.

The complaint filed against Guidote-Alvarez claimed that she had unliquidated cash advances of P20,000 and P30,000 incurred in May 2005 for the Cleaning and Greening Commitment for BASECO.

She explained that the case was filed after she left NCCA, and was dismissed two months ago. "The decision is clear, 'in the light of all the foregoing, there is no reason to hold the accused for trial and further expose her to public accusation and humiliation of a crime where no probable cause exists,'" she said.

The copy of the decision was transmitted to the BI, but the officers told Guidote-Alvarez that "they could not find it on the computer."

Guidote-Alvarez also mentioned that the flight she was prevented from taking on June 10 was a Philippine Airlines flight to Los Angeles, courtesy of PAL due to the significance of her mission for the country. "It was sad that it wasted because I had to pay for the taxes," she said.

Her speech at the General Assembly's thematic debate was focused on Philippine leadership in promoting culture and the arts.

"Where politics almost certainly divides, arts can unite and heal, bond and cement a nation and peoples together," she said in her speech "Towards a Culture of Peace and Sustainable Development: Drawing from a Philippine Experience."

Dismissed cases

Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David earlier said people with dismissed court cases should make sure that hold departure orders issued against them are no longer in effect before leaving the country.

David said passengers with previous court cases are not allowed to leave the airport because the BI was not given copies of court orders dismissing these people's cases and cancelling the hold departure orders against them.

Guidote-Alvarez stressed that the decision was sent two months ago. Her husband, former senator Heherson Alvarez, arrived at the airport at four in the morning to present all the documents, and she was eventually allowed to leave.

"I screamed for justice and fairness. This is not good governance. Hindi ito matuwid na pamamalakad... After much discussion, they finally let me go," she said.  

Asked if she planned to file a case against the BI, Guidote-Alvarez said she would have to discuss this with her lawyer. She said even though she was eventually allowed to leave, she had to pay for a new ticket to make the engagement. "If I didn't do that I would have failed at my task. It is an honor that should not have been deprived," she said. - VVP, GMA News


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