THE BUREAU of Immigration (BI) announced that it is ready for the holiday rush, deploying more immigration officers to different international airports to beef up manpower.
BI Port Operations chief Grifton Medina disclosed that travel orders directing the concerned employees to report to their airport assignments starting this week were already issued by Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente.
The added officers are deployed to help process the thousands of international passengers expected to enter and exit the country in droves during the holiday break.
Medina said Morente approved his recommendation to implement the personnel augmentation scheme in view of the reported increase in the number of passengers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and other airports in the past few days.
“We are actually expecting an upsurge of travelers entering the Philippines by around the second or third week of December as Christmastime approaches,” said Medina.
It was learned that of the 56 BI officers who were issued travel orders, 19 of them will be reporting to the NAIA while the 37 others were dispersed to the airports in Clark, Mactan, Kalibo, and Davao.
The said immigration officers are presently detailed at the BI main office and in other immigration field and satellite offices nationwide.
Medina, nonetheless, clarified that the reassignment of the said employees are only temporary and that they would return to their current posts when passenger volume at the airports drops. (Jun Ramirez)
