A CATHOLIC bishop on Wednesday lashed out at President Benigno Aquino III for playing down the bullet-planting extortion racket at the airport that has victimized several overseas Filipino workers.
“The Aquino government has been ignoring the problem. And we can see here that he is not compassionate [or] merciful, [but is] heartless [toward] our OFWs,” said Bishop Ruperto Santos, chairman of the Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
In an interview over the church-owned Radio Veritas, Santos said it was insensitive of Aquino to say the problem has merely been sensationalized, and said this showed the President was out of touch.
Earlier, in a media forum in Kuala Lumpur, the President said the number of bullet-planting incidents was very small compared to the millions of passengers who pass through the airport, and that the whole issue had been blown out of proportion by the press.
“Either he is misinformed or he is fed with sanitized information regarding the issue,” Santos said.
Earlier the bishop called on overseas Filipino workers and the public not to vote for candidates who are insensitive and indifferent to the plight of workers, including those who ignored the bullet-planting scam.
“Don’t vote for candidates who are not compassionate to those who have been victimized, particularly overseas Filipino workers, as well as tourists,” Santos said.
Lawyers for the victims of the extortion racket on Wednesday also lambasted the President’s remarks.
“That was an irresponsible statement from the President of the Philippines,” said Ernesto Arellano, the legal counsel of American missionary Lane Michael White, one of the victims of the bullet-planting extortion racket.
“When he said it was sensationalized by the media, no, it’s not. The contribution of the media is very significant in leading the way. The President should be the one to lead the way, but instead it is the media that is showing him the way,” Arellano added.
In Kuala Lumpur, the President said: “For every 10 persons who entered the airport, how many were victimized? Two or three? I don’t think so. This was just sensationalized and there are those benefitted from this being sensationalized,” Mr. Aquino said.
Lawyer Spocky Farolan, who represents Hong Kong domestic worker Gloria Ortinez, said the President should look past the numbers and see the pain the scam has caused its victims.
He said Ortinez nearly lost her job when she lost her flight after being apprehended for allegedly carrying a bullet in her hand carry bag last month.
Ortinez returned to Hong Kong after her case was dismissed by the Pasay City prosecutors office.
Two members of the Aviation Security Group—Careen De Padua and Rommel Ballesteros—were removed from their posts 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. She said she didn’t own the bullet and insisted she was a victim of the so-called tanim-bala scam at the airport.
“You cannot demean the victims by simply making them into statistics. They are people—they have feelings, they have a family, they have brothers and sisters,” Farolan said.
The lawyers also appealed to President Aquino to be compassionate and remove from his post Manila International Airport Authority General Manager Jose Angel Honrado who did nothing against airport employees involved in the scam.
“The President has difficulty in disengaging himself from people whom he perceives to have given him some favors,” Arellano said.
Office for Transportation Security chief Rolando Recomono has denied the existence of a syndicate engaged in the bullet-planting scheme but he said some 65 people from his office have been dismissed since 2012.
He said the dismissed employees were acting on their own and were not part of a syndicate.
Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya has also insisted that there is no syndicate at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.