YouTuber Vitaly Zdorovetskiy's detention in the Philippines has renewed scrutiny of conditions inside the country's immigration centres. A TikTok video from the channel @beforetheywerefamous claims he is being held in the Bureau of Immigration's (BI) Bicutan facility, which is allegedly operating at nearly three times its intended capacity. While the clip has drawn widespread attention, official figures for 2025 remain unavailable, making it difficult to verify the claim.
The Bicutan detention centre is historically overcrowded. Published data from April 2020 shows a population of 418 detainees against a designed capacity of 140. These figures reflect long-standing congestion but cannot confirm the current situation. Philippine authorities have not commented directly on Zdorovetskiy's detention or the centre's present population, leaving much of the public discussion shaped by social media reports.
