MikeLigalig.com

How can ex-chief of legal Arvin Cesar Santos was arrested not less than 9 months ago and charged with Graft and Corruption practices by the Manila prosecutors office on December 19, 2013 for helping a Korean fugitive released from Bicutan, [See article http://www.rappler.com/nation/46260-charges-immigration-officials-escape-korean-park] keep a position and get promoted under the most important man in the Philippines Immigration?
 
There are logically 2 ways, either money or blackmail, lets look at the possible scenarios.
 
First at money payoffs, it is a well known fact that millions of pesos were passing through the hands of "fixers" to the legal department prosecutors who in turn paid off the chief of legal, Arvin Cesar Santos, who was the buffer for the corrupt commissioners. All these payoffs were for either fixing visa violations or obtaining visas for foreigners.
 
Bicutan Immigration detention center became a processing factory for foreigners, if the foreigner did not pay the exorbitant amount of extortion money, which ranged from 200,000 php to 10 million php ($5000-$175,000), depending if the foreigner had administrative violation or if they were fugitives from their country. The foreigners could be held for days or up to years, they became commodities,  illegally detained until their will was broken and they paid the extortion amount demanded.
 
If the foreigner did not pay and decided to take the legal recourse, it became a long a grueling process. The legal department first action is to file a charge sheet and detain the foreigner, thus he is caged like a trapped animal. The foreigner will file a "Motion to dismiss charge sheet and Motion for bail". Bail is never given, how can you extort them for large payments if they are free?

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6.If the foreigner goes before the Philippines DOJ, he will then face the corrupt Chief Counsels and prosecutors who handle Immigration cases and is coordinating with the corrupt immigration legal staff.
 
7. Again the foreigner will face extortion by the DOJ prosecutors to quickly resolve the appeals in a short period of time or it will be rejected.
 
8. If the foreigner does not pay, the appeal process will face delays negligently beyond the 3 month time period to resolve, it could be delayed for 12-15 months.
 
9. Once a rejection of the appeal has been decided, the foreigner must file a "Motion for Reconsideration" , which will take 6-10 months to decide, obviously negative. The DOJ will then send back to the Immigration commissioner Siegfried Mison "for comments", once again you will be approached to pay extortion money in order to get a positive comment.
 
10. Once the MTR is decided, then the foreigner can file an appeal with the Court of Appeals, which will take 6-12 months.

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Why? 2 main reasons.
 
1) Money - If Arvin Cesar Santos was suspended or transferred out of the legal department, then Siegfried Mison had no one he could trust to make his deals. Who would be the buffer? His dirty money would finish!
 
2) Blackmail- If Arvin Cesar Santos is to take all the blame, then he will take down Siegfed Mison with him. Partners in crime! See articles posted:
 
"BI Ex-chief of legal, Arvin Cesar Santos in fear of his life, tells all about corrupt DOJ prosecutors and immigration legal department"

http://shamelessimmigration.blogspot.com/2014/02/bi-ex-chief-of-legal-arvin-cesar-santos.html
 
"Immigration ex-chief of legal Arvin Santos tells all, Siegfred Mison knew everything that was going on, he was neck deep”

http://shamelessimmigration.blogspot.com/2014/02/immigration-ex-chief-of-legal-arvin.html
 
"Philippines Immigration Chief Siegfred Mison is neck deep in illegal activity within Bureau of Immigration"

http://shamelessimmigration.blogspot.com/2014/02/philippines-immigration-chief-siegfred.html

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There are thousands of websites and blogs written about the corruption in the Philippines Immigration, just Google Philippines Immigration Corruption, it will give you years of reading.
 
How can such a "criminal syndicate" operate for such a long period of time? They lock up and detain pregnant women, children, handicapped, elderly, foreigners and extort them in order for a release.
 
Remember Bicutan Immigration Detention center is supposed to be a temporary administrative holding facility, why are foreigners being held on an average of 6 years? There are foreigners that are being held for 7, 9, 11, 14 years in Bicutan.

Despite criminal complaints filed with Commission of Human Rights, Philippines Ombudsman, DOJ, Senators, Office of President, Manila Prosecutors office and many other agencies, nothing is being done.

The only way to clean up this "cancer of corruption" is mandatory early retirement for the entire legal staff including the Board of Commissioners. Replace with younger, in-corrupt staff that will look for a better Philippines, one that looks for the future not for their pockets, looks for humanity and legal due process, not their pockets.

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