89 Pinoy deportees from US arrive at Clark

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga - As Angelo de la Cruz arrived in Manila to a joyful reunion with his family after being released by Iraqi militants, 89 Filipinos deported by the United States government arrived at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) here yesterday.

The Filipinos had been deported by the US government for various crimes, including assault, theft, sex offenses, cruelty to their spouses, sex with minors, fraud, burglary, extortion and illegal drug charges.

Some of the deportees were reportedly handcuffed during the flight home, but their restraints were removed as soon as the plane entered Philippine air space.

The flight manifest indicated that the deportees served their sentences in the US prior to deportation.

This batch of deportees was sent home by a chartered American Trans Air flight AMT-6057, which arrived at Clark Field at 11 a.m., just hours before De la Cruz planed in at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

The US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) informed officials of the DMIA that the US government plans to deport Filipinos staying illegally in the US via chartered flights "every three or four months," DMIA general manager Bienvenido Manga said.

According to Manga, five planes chartered by the US government to ferry deported Filipinos arrived at DMIA last year with some 72 to 90 deportees on each plane.

The deportees were escorted by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and an undetermined number of INS officials.

Sources at DMIA said another planeload of Filipino deportees was scheduled to land at the airport at 7 p.m., but Manga said he knew nothing about a second batch of deportees.

Officials from the Bureau of Immigration (BI), Bureau of Customs (BOC), Department of Health (DOH), Customs Immigration Quarantine (CIQ) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) processed the deportees before they boarded buses bound for Metro Manila.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and other government agencies involved in the processing of the deportees maintain a policy of not divulging their identities. — Ding Cervantes