A Filipino worker overseas Gloria Ortinez has lost her job in Hong Kong after suffering the traumatic experience of having to be questioned and be detained for two days by airport officers over the so-called “tanim-bala” (planting-bullet scheme) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The 56-year-old, also known as Nanay Gloria, was supposed to report for work in Hong Kong Saturday but immigration officials there told her that she had already lost her job.
“Sa Hong Kong immigration unang nalaman ni Nanay Gloria na terminated na sya sa kanyang trabaho. Bagong misyon nila Susan Ople: makausap ang employer o makahanap ng panibago within 14 days. Prayers please for Nanay Glo,” said OFW rights advocate Susan Ople in her Facebook account.
Aside from Ople, Ortinez was also accompanied by her legal counsel Spocky Farolan and Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad upon her return to Hong Kong, where she worked for 13 years.
Ortinez returned to Hong Kong three days after her case was dismissed by the Pasay City prosecutors office in connection with the bullet allegedly found in her hand-carry bag while she was about to board a connecting flight at the Naia.
A resolution, signed by Prosecutor Nolasco Fernandez Jr., dismissed the charges filed against Ortinez for lack of probable cause.
“Based on the evidence presented, the undersigned notice that the attached photograph depicting one ammunition for carbine rifle and the actual ammunition presented during the inquest proceeding allegedly seized from the respondent is distinctively different from one another, thereby casting reasonable doubt as to the identity of the subject ammunition,” a resolution signed by Fernandez stated.
The resolution also stated that “assuming for the sake of argument that the ammunition was recovered from her possession, nowhere in the entire statements of the complainants will show that respondent had any intention to possess the subject ammunition.”
“Finally, it is noteworthy that the bullet is a harmless article without the corresponding gun or firearm to fire it.”
Two members of the Aviation Security Group—Careen De Padua and Rommel Ballesteros—were relieved from their post after the bullet that supposedly belonged to Ortinez did not match the one presented before the prosecutors office.
Ortinez was about to take a connecting flight from Laoag Airport to Hong Kong on Oct. 25 when she was apprehended.
Ortinez said she didn’t own the bullet and insisted she was a victim of the so-called tanim-bala scam happening at the airport.