Two more Japanese nationals who are allegedly involved in a series of robberies in their country will be deported on Wednesday, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said.

Violence Against Women and Children cases against Yuki Watanabe and Tomonobu Saito dismissed by the Pasay Regional Trial Court this morning, paving the way for their deportation.

Watanabe is said to be “Luffy”, the leader of the robbery group.

At around 9 am Tuesday, Toshiya Fujita and Kiyoto Imamura, who are tagged as members of their robbery group, were deported to Japan.

In a press briefing late Tuesday, Remulla said: “The flight tomorrow is JAL 078 at 11:45 pm for the last two deportees, Watanabe and Saito. And we expect everything to go smoothly with seven escorts for the two deportees. And we expect everything to go on a schedule.”

Remulla said the case of the four Japanese suspects and confiscation of 24 cellphones and tablets from them at a detention center in Taguig was a “wake-up call” that showed reforms were needed at the Bureau of Immigration.

“Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a new working arrangement in the Bureau of Immigration. Because of this case, we have been…actually even before this case happened, we already knew that reforms had to be made. And this was really a wake-up call for us to go on and change a lot of things happening at the Bureau of Immigration,” Remulla said.

“Most of all, of course, the detention center is the one that we have to change. And we started out by taking all their positions, 32 personnel of the Bureau of Immigration. And new people have been assigned to guard the fugitives and the other deportees or the other persons in detention due to the expiration of their visas,” he added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS