EDITORIAL - How many left?  How many arrived?

The recent arrest of Mohit and Twinkle Dargani, both sought by the Senate to shed light on the alleged anomalous transactions between the government and their company, Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., raised several questions already posed in a previous editorial.

But there is another question that needs to be asked: How were the Dargani siblings able to clear the Bureau of Immigration despite the lookout bulletin order issued against them?

The fact that the siblings were arrested in Davao City when they were already on board a private chartered plane, and not at the airport BI counter where they should have been flagged, or at the lounge where they presumably waited for their plane to be prepared, raises suspicions that they were let through.

So what happened? We would like to believe that the BI in Davao, where the siblings tried to leave the country, gets bulletins issued by their head office. Davao has a world-class international airport after all and security has to be world-class as well.

We hope that the BI can come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why this happened. Because the other alternatives --that they were sleeping on the job, or that the BI lets people in and out of the country easily if they are willing to pay well enough-- are just too horrendous to think about.

In the end this also raises another question entirely: If the Dargani siblings were able to clear immigration, how many people similarly being sought by the authorities, whether for committing crimes or just to participate in an investigation, have made it through the BI when they were not supposed to?

How many wanted fugitives or persons of interest were able to leave the country under the noses of authorities this way?

On the other hand, or should we say the other side of the BI counter, how many people who were not supposed to get in got in?