A day after 20 Chinese nationals were temporarily detained for working without permits, the officer assigned at the Immigration Office here was recalled to the bureau’s office in Manila due to alleged pressure from Chinese communities. Paulino Versoza, acting alien control officer of the Laoag Immigration district office, received his recall order on April 12 or a day after he arrested 20 Chinese nationals for working on a mining site without working permits. The Chinese were eventually released after being issued special working permits for three months. They entered the province as tourists on separate dates. The Chinese, who came from Xiamen, China, had been working as laborers at the Rigid Aggregates and Mining Corporation in Carasi town since December. Versoza immediately went to Manila and explained to BID Commissioner Roy Almoro that the arrest and detention of the Chinese were in accordance with law. After his meeting with Almoro, Versoza was eventually ordered to return to work effective April 16. The recall order, however, has yet to be rescinded. “I have to continue performing my functions so as not to create a vacuum in the office because the recall order made no mention of a replacement,” Versoza said adding that the recall will be rescinded any time. Versoza said he arrested the Chinese nationals based on a complaint of the town mayor and some members of indigenous folks who appeared to have been displaced from their work at the mining site because of the foreign employees. The arrest was made at the time that the Chinese consulate of the Peoples’ Republic of China in Laoag formally opened. Versoza said he joined officials from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the PNP-Regional Mobile Group in reaching the mining site where the foreign nationals have been working. The complaint showed that trees surrounding the mining site were felled and used to build bunker houses for the Chinese laborers. He said the police was likewise alerted because of reports that the site was being prepared for the setting up of a factory for illegal drugs. “We might have stumbled upon an area where an illegal drug laboratory could be built,” Versoza said. Ilocos Norte Rep. Roque Ablan, Jr., chairman of the House committee on dangerous drugs, said the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency has been put on notice that shabu laboratories may have been built in undisclosed areas in the province. “The PDEA is now looking into several areas (as possible laboratory sites) including the mining site where the 20 Chinese nationals were arrested,” Ablan said. He said foreign nationals entering the Philippines as tourists could not be allowed to work because the country prefers the employment of locals. Cristina Arzadon (PIA-Ilocos News Service)
|
|