3 more BI officials fired over VIP treatment for Russian vlogger
President Marcos has called for a thorough investigation of the claims made by a deported Russian vlogger that corruption is thriving inside the detention facilities of the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
Palace press officer Claire Castro said on Monday that while Vitaly Zdorovetskiy “has done nothing but malign our country” in his videos, the government would look into his claims.
Castro also warned that more heads would roll should government officials and personnel refuse to heed the President’s call to stop corruption.
“Every agency, all agency heads, and every government employee knows that the President wants this government to be free from corruption,” she said.
“If they do not comply with the President’s directive to keep the government clean of corruption, they may be removed from their positions,” she added.
Courtesy resignation
At the same time, Castro announced that three more BI officials have been fired over the alleged special treatment given to Zdorovetskiy during his nine-month detention at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City. Three other officials were dismissed last week for the same reason.
Castro said Immigration Commissioner Joel Viado accepted the courtesy resignation of the head of the BI warden facility and removed the two deputies in charge of the bureau’s warden facilities in Camp Bagong Diwa and the Bureau of Corrections compound in Muntinlupa City.
Zdorovetskiy, who was arrested in April last year after harassing several people in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, claimed that he was able to sneak a cellphone into the detention facility after bribing BI jail guards.
“I had a phone the whole time in jail. I vlogged the whole experience. I’m going to expose the corruption,” he said in a livestream conversation with American online personality Adin Ross on Jan. 23. “You can do anything. Money talks in the Philippines,” added the vlogger, who was deported to Russia on Jan. 17.
In an interview on state-run PTV, BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said Zdorovetskiy violated the detention facility rules.
“Inside the facility, it’s not entirely forbidden to use phones; detainees are allowed to use their mobile phones to contact their family, counsel, or embassy but only for a limited period,” she said.
However, they are prohibited from watching videos or doing vlogs. “Our leadership suspects that he did not directly smuggle the cellphone himself because he was under heavy guard; it may have been other foreign nationals around him who smuggled such gadgets,” Sandoval said.
