The Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced Thursday that the main offices of its operating units at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) have returned to their original workplaces at Terminal 3 building.
BI Commissioner Jaime Morente thanked Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) General Manager Ed Monreal for allowing the bureau’s port operations division (POD) and its attached sections to go back to their old offices.
The BI is promoting physical distancing among the employees to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
It can be recalled that the BI-NAIA relocated all its personnel to Terminal 1 two months ago after MIAA shut down its operations in the three other terminals due to the cancellation of most international flights by the different airlines amid the virus outbreak.
Morente also said the transfer was in preparation for the reopening of normal operations by the bureau at premier port due to plans by some airlines to resume flights on July 1, using Terminal 3.
“We anticipate more flights in the coming days as thousands of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) stranded abroad are awaiting repatriation,” Morente added.
The BI chief stressed that “even as we begin our transition to new normal we will continue to implement strict health protocols for our frontliners and clients to prevent them from catching the deadly virus.”
BI port operations chief Grifton Medina explained that only the heads and deputy chiefs and staff of the division and its attached sections and units have returned to Terminal 3.
“Our frontline immigration officers, duty supervisors and their support personnel who perform counter duties, primary and secondary inspection, intelligence operations, and administrative functions remain deployed at Terminals 1 and 2 where international repatriation and sweeper flights continue to operate,” Medina said.
“We are ready to redeploy our officers at Terminal 3 when international flights resume there,” he added.
Aside from the POD, Medina said offices that returned to Terminal 3 are the airport operations section, order control and intelligence unit, travel control and enforcement unit, quality management unit, special concerns unit, anti-fraud section, and anti-terrorist group. (Jun Ramirez)
