Immigration man eyed in Garcillano flight -- source
Ebdane PMA classmate ‘prepared’ travel papers

First posted 00:51am (Mla time) Aug 19, 2005
By Fe Zamora, Nikko Dizon, Leila B. Salaverria
Inquirer News Service

AN ASSOCIATE commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration was allegedly responsible for preparing the travel papers that allowed former Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to travel to Singapore on July 14.

A source identified the BI official as Teddy Delarmente, a 1970 graduate of the Philippine Military Academy and classmate of former national police chief Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., now public works secretary, whose name had cropped up earlier as the one who escorted Garcillano out of the country.

The Inquirer tried to call Delarmente, but his phone just kept ringing. His staff said he was out of town and would be back on Monday.

Ebdane could also not be reached for comment. His staff said he did not come to the office yesterday.

Garcillano was placed on the BI watch list on Aug. 4 after the House of Representatives issued a warrant for his arrest. The House wants him to explain the wiretapped conversation with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in which Ms Arroyo allegedly directed him to rig last year's presidential election.

Senator Panfilo Lacson said Garcillano could not have left the country without the help of the government.

"My suspicion is that it is the government which allowed Garci to leave," Lacson said.

The senator said that for someone to leave the country through the back door (Mindanao) would require contacts in the BI for the exit stamps needed for his or her entry to airports in Singapore and London.

"Who has the capacity to do that? Only the government or the administration," Lacson said.

He noted that Garcillano was seen in Bataan province and in Clark Special Economic Zone, Pampanga province, on July 4 and 5.

"After that we lost track of him until we heard about the maintenance flight of Subic Air for Singapore," Lacson said.

Immigration agents may have connived to allow Garcillano to leave the country without leaving a record of his departure, admitted Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr.

But in a statement, Fernandez denied the bureau had been involved in a conspiracy to cover up Garcillano's departure. He said Garcillano was only placed on the bureau's watch list on Aug. 4, and any attempts by him to leave before that date could not have been stopped.

ATO says poll exec not on jet

The Air Transportation Office (ATO) insisted yesterday that Garcillano was not aboard the Subic Air Learjet RP-C1246 that left for Singapore on July 14.

An ATO source provided the Inquirer a copy of the aircraft's flight clearance, also known as the general declaration, and passenger manifest showing that RP-C1426 had no passengers on board.

The source also provided a copy of the general declaration from Jet Aviation in Singapore, showing that the Learjet left the city-state with only its two pilots and a mechanic.

On both the Subic Air and Jet Aviation general declarations, which included the passenger manifests, only the names of pilot Captain Arthur Santos, co-pilot Captain Wilfrido Bautista and mechanic Benito Hafalla appeared.

Santos and Bautista were said to be the most trusted personal pilots of Jose "Pepito" Alvarez, owner of Subic Air.

But Santos may have violated international law by flying abroad as a captain when he was already over 60 years of age, according to an opposition congressman.

Seletar airstrip

The Jet Aviation general declaration listed the three men's passport numbers: ZZ 129376 for Santos, ZZ 074051 for Bautista and MM 549412 for Hafalla.

The Learjet left Singapore for Puerto Princesa on July 15 at 1 p.m. The passenger manifest was blank.

So was the passenger manifest that Santos had prepared and signed in Manila before leaving for Seletar, a little known airstrip in Singapore, on July 14 from the General Aviation Area (GAA) beside the Manila Domestic Airport, the document provided to the Inquirer showed.

The passenger manifest bore stamps of the Bureau of Customs-Aircraft Operation Division (AOD) and the Bureau of Immigration.

"It's not true that Garcillano was on the flight," the source said. Subic Air's general declaration also showed that its flight path on July 14 was Manila-Singapore, and not Manila-Cebu.

In a phone interview, ATO chief Nilo Jatico spoke of the two general declarations and banked on these to prove that he did not brief Subic Air's pilots on the reported flight of Garcillano to Singapore.

"The ones on the Learjet that left Manila were the same people who also left Singapore," he said.

Violation

Asked about the possibility that Garcillano was on the flight but was not declared on the manifest, Jatico said that would be a violation on the part of the pilot and the operators of the aircraft.

"That would be a misdeclaration and many agencies would go after them, such as the CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine) and the Avsecom (Aviation Security Command)," Jatico said.

Pilots and operators face a suspension of their licenses if found guilty of misdeclaration, he added.

Immigration officer Raymond Pilac, who signed the flight clearance of RP-C1426 for the BI on July 14, stressed the importance of the immigration's departure stamp on a passenger's passport for the person to be admitted to the destination country.

He said he did not see the name of Garcillano on the general declarations and passenger manifests he had recently stamped.

Silence enveloped the Subic Air hangar at the GAA yesterday afternoon. There were two parked light planes, none of which was the controversial Learjet RP-C1426.

The company's staff told the Inquirer that they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Diplomatic niceties

Diplomatic "niceties" kept the Department of Foreign Affairs from obtaining more details about Garcillano's overseas trail, according to DFA spokesperson Gilberto Asuque when pressed why the agency could only come up with scant information on the poll official's flight to Singapore.

Asuque also disclosed that the DFA did not make formal inquiries about Garcillano's whereabouts overseas until "the first week of August," or after receiving a request from the House public information committee, which is investigating the two-month-old "Hello Garci" wiretapping scandal.

"That's all the information we have," Asuque said at a briefing a day after the DFA confirmed Garcillano's arrival in the city-state on July 14 and his departure for a still unknown destination the following day.

"When you're out there, you can't just ask for details out of courtesy. There are some niceties we have to recognize in requesting information from a host government. And we are pleased and grateful to the Singapore government for providing us the basic and substantive information," he told reporters.

Transit point to US

This was when he was asked why the Singapore government did not include other flight details that could help the Philippine government track down the controversial election commissioner.

"The communication (sent to Singapore) simply said 'we are forwarding the request of the Philippine Congress to ascertain the whereabouts of Mr. Garcillano. Please provide information.' Then they just sent a reply," he said.

The hunt for Garcillano could reach US shores because he is now in the United States, according to Cavite Representative Gilbert Remulla.

"My sources say he was not given a visa to enter the UK (United Kingdom)," Remulla told the Inquirer in a phone interview, quoting "A1 sources."

The lawmaker said it was possible that London was just his "transit point" en route to the US from Singapore.

Fact-finding committee

Fernandez said he had created a five-member fact-finding committee to check if BI personnel or officers of other government agencies were involved in letting Garcillano fly abroad without going through routine immigration procedures, thus violating immigration and aviation laws.

Asked if it was possible for immigration agents to help Garcillano leave undetected, Fernandez said: "Yes, we are looking into that. That is included in our investigation."

He said that to uncover the identity of the immigration agent who might have helped Garcillano leave, the BI would first coordinate with the DFA to check if the latter's passport had an exit stamp from the bureau.

He said if the stamp on the passport was genuine, then the immigration agent who issued the stamp could be traced and asked how Garcillano was able to fly abroad without leaving a record of his flight at the BI.

Special ink

"The BI is using a special ink with security features for the stamp. It also has a corresponding number that we could use to trace the person who issued the stamp," Fernandez said in a phone interview.

He also said it was possible that the stamp on the passport was fake, but added that a spurious mark would be easy for the BI to detect because of the special ink it uses.

Fernandez said Garcillano could have also deliberately bypassed immigration agents in going to Singapore, which could explain why the BI had no record of his departure.

If the former election official left on a chartered flight, the pilot was still required to declare the identity of his passengers, according to the immigration commissioner. If the pilot failed to do so, then he is at risk of being sanctioned.

Fernandez ruled out the possibility that Garcillano had left on a commercial flight.

He said that the other day, he had personally checked all flights that had left for Singapore on July 14, and their passenger manifests showed no Garcillano. He said three of the flights were of Singapore Airlines, two of Philippine Airlines and one of Jet Star. With a report from Juliet Labog-Javellana