Some 30 immigration officers were transferred to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in view of the expected influx of arrivals this coming Christmas holiday.
Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Jaime Morente said yesterday the reassigned employees were previously detailed at the bureau’s main office and other BI field offices nationwide.
“They should be rendering counter duties at the airport where their services are most needed especially at this time of the year when we expect the volume of passengers at the NAIA to begin increasing steadily until after the New Year,” Morente said.
Morente announced that some 40 newly-hired immigration officers will begin reporting for duty at the NAIA starting in the first week of November.
He said the new immigration inspectors is about to finish their three-month training in immigration laws, rules and procedures at the Immigration academy in Clark Field, Pampanga.
“The deployment of more immigration officers to the NAIA will definitely reduce, if not eliminate, the long queues of passengers that are always seen in our counters at the airport at the onset of the Yuletide season,” he said.
Morente also revealed that the BI has beefed up the number of its intelligence agents at the NAIA who will monitor passengers arriving and departing.
“We have specifically instructed our agents to be on the lookout for undesirable aliens, including suspected terrorists and drug mules, who might take advantage of the holiday break to sneak into the country,” he said.
Morente added that personnel assigned to the BI’s travel control and enforcement unit were also directed to be doubly strict in monitoring departing travelers to prevent human traffickers and illegal recruiters from employing their dirty tricks in facilitating their victims’ exit from the NAIA. (Jun Ramirez)