MANILA, Philippines—Procedural improvements and service efficiency will be the priorities of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) this 2020.
According to BI Commissioner Jaime Morente, 2020 will be the year that they “reap what they have sowed in terms of improvements laid out in the past years.”
“We open the year with a 2020 vision of what’s in store for the Bureau,” said Morente in a statement. “We have laid out numerous improvements for the past years, now it’s time to see how these changes have improved the system,” he added.
It can be recalled that the BI installed 21 e-gates in major airports nationwide which reduced the queuing time of the traveling public from the usual 45 seconds to as low as 8 seconds per passenger. The said project has been a recipient of an award at the Philippine OpenGov leadership forum 2019. The e-gates is said to process a total of 250,000 passengers each month.
“We are studying expanding this project to other smaller airports, as well as the departure areas for the next few years,” Morente revealed.
Morente shared that the e-gates prioritized Filipino citizens, especially overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), to lessen their waiting time and allow them to spend more hours with their families. “We wanted to improve how we serve our OFWs who sacrifice themselves for their families, hence we also implemented a special lane for them, and acquired pre-screening equipment for faster and more efficient checking,” he added.
Data from the BI shows that the number of international travelers are getting bigger and bigger each year. In 2015, the BI serviced a total of 21.2M international travelers who flew in and out the country, and in 2019, the total number reached 32.3M.
“With this growing number of international travelers, there is a need for our numbers to grow as well,” said Morente. “For 2020, we pray that we be granted more manpower as we are expecting numerous airports to open. We are also looking into beefing up our manpower for our southern borders,” he added.
Morente shared that they only have around 1,900 organic personnel. “Apart from our airports, BI personnel are also stationed in seaports, border crossing stations, as well as field and district offices all over the Philippines. Because of lack of manpower, we are heavily dependent on contractual personnel. We are managing, but we are already spread out too thinly, especially when we are looking forward to the opening of new airports,” he shared.
Morente added that they are also looking forward to the passing of the new immigration modernization law. “Hopefully our new law is passed this year. The Philippine Immigration Act is a very old law, and many provisions are outdated already. We see this as a priority not only to upgrade the salaries of our personnel, but to update immigration policies on the ever-increasing number of foreign nationals coming into the country,” he added.
Despite the challenges, Morente remains positive for the new year. “Expect more improvements from the BI for the following years. Following the President’s orders, we will be focusing on service efficiency to ensure we provide better immigration service,” he pledged.
