(Eagle News) — Foreigners cleared of criminal cases can still be deported.
The Bureau of Immigration Board of Commissioners issued this ruling after a Swiss-Italian national appealed the bureau’s order for him to leave the Philippines despite having been cleared of some of the criminal cases against him.
In upholding the findings of the Bureau’s Special Board of Inquiry against Alfred Josef Honegger, 67, the board said the criminal conviction of foreigner was not a prerequisite to deportation because unlike criminal proceedings, deportation is an administrative action where the evidence required is not the highest quantum of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
According to the bureau, the lowest standard of substantial evidence applies instead in the proceeding that is summary in nature.
“The acquittal of an accused in a criminal case does not bar the deportation of an alien, who has been established by competent evidence to have committed acts contrary to morals, good customs, public order, or public policy,” the board chaired by Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said.
In this case, the board said Honegger’s “intervening in the management, operation, administration, and control” of a restaurant in Cordova, Cebu, deprived Filipinos of jobs and business opportunities which should have been strictly reserved to them.
The bureau said that makes him an undesirable alien.
As a result, the board ordered Honegger’s inclusion in the bureau’s blacklist, adding that his presence in the country poses a risk to public interest.
“Conviction of a crime is not necessary to warrant deportation,” the bureau said.
