MANILA — The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has recently reshuffled shift and terminal assignments of over 400 personnel at the terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said that the movement of 467 personnel is part of the agency’s continuing program to prevent corruption and improve its service to the traveling public.
“All immigration officers assigned at the NAIA were transferred from his or her presently assigned terminal to any one of the two other terminals at the airport,” he said in a statement.
Morente added that no one was exempted from the personnel movement which seeks to prevent fraternization among the employees which has been pinpointed as a major source of corruption in government.
The BI chief said the scheme also aims to raise the employees’ productivity as they would be working in a new environment and with new co-workers in their workplace.
On the other hand, BI port operations division chief Marc Red Mariñas said this is the second time that immigration officers at the NAIA had been moved, the first one was in June this year.
But, he said that the latest reshuffle was different from the last one since about 20 percent of the immigration officers rotated would have new working hours as their shift assignments were also changed to either sunriser, midflight and graveyard shift.
The previous rotation only involved the personnel’s terminal assignments.
Mariñas added the NAIA-BI reshuffle was implemented ahead of the Christmas holiday break when there is an expected influx and exodus of international travelers to and from the country.
“We assure the traveling public that we have enough personnel to man our booths at the airport during the holidays. But due to the big volume of passengers those long queues cannot be avoided, thus we urge the public to come to the airport early so they will not miss their flights,” he said. (Ferdinand Patinio/PNA)
