MANILA, Philippines — An Afghan national suspected to be a supporter of a terrorist group was deported by the Bureau of Immigration Monday.
Bureau of Immigration Associate Commissioner Gilbert Repizo said the Afghan national, whom he declined to identify, sought voluntary deportation and left the country Monday afternoon.
Repizo said they took the foreigner into custody on Wednesday last week (Nov. 18) as part of precautionary measures during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit.
The Afghan national, who arrived in the country last Nov. 15 along with eight others, initially stayed in Cavite.
“We received reports that there was a group arriving. This is not an isolated case, this is just exercising caution on the part to the BI so we also did a background check on other individuals… This is a regular exercise of an inherent power of the BI to make a background check on foreign individuals in the territory,” Repizo said.
However, when they checked the foreigner’s Facebook account, they found out that he has been adhering to Khalifa Islamiya, prompting authorities to suspect him of being a supporter of the alleged terrorist group.
“He did not say no to Apec but on his Facebook, there were slogans saying no to civil liberties, no to democracy, no to secularism but yes to Khalifa Islamiya. He was deported not because he did an act but the same ideology is a ground for deportation,” said Repizo.
The Afghan national was reportedly part of a delegation that attended a training program related to agriculture in Laguna last week.
“But his delegation was not part of the Apec economies. He left the training and went to Manila during Apec activity. He was allegedly going to the Mall of Asia so we sent intel operatives in the field. According to the training organizer, he was not originally part of the delegation, he was actually a last-minute addition to the delegation,” the BI official said.
“The organizer said they were preventing him to leave but still he proceeded to Manila. The organizer then alerted us because of the special situation at that time. It is within the inherent power of the bureau to check the activities of foreigners especially if we have these kinds of high profile activity attended by 21 heads of state,” he added.
Repizo said BI intelligence and PNP managed to locate the foreigner’s whereabouts in Makati.
“He said he was bored and that he was meeting somebody but considering this is his first time in the country, he could not say who was he meeting. He was then about to proceed to MOA (Mall of Asia). We accosted him more as a precautionary move on our part,” he said.
He added that the foreigner was not put in jail, but was held in a hotel in Makati. SFM