Duterte ready to certify bills on immigration law update

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte is ready to certify the pending bills in Congress seeking to update the immigration law under the 1940 Commonwealth Act, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said yesterday.

At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum, Guevarra said that during the meeting between Duterte and the 44 Bureau of Immigration personnel who were suspended for allegedly being involved in the “pastillas scam,” the President gave him the opportunity to speak before the BI employees present at Malacañang.

“One of the things I stated before the President was to emphasize the need to get the bills on BI modernization moving. I believe the BI modernization will affect its structural, personnel and processes within. All of these, once updated and modernized, will somehow contribute to the reduction of a lot of discretion and consequently, corruption within the agency,” Guevarra said.

“So I emphasized to the President, I am hoping that the legislative liaison official will properly push the enactment of the bills finally modernizing the BI,” he added.

The justice secretary said that while the BI is acquiring new equipment for the airport, “all of these technological improvements are still within a framework that has not been updated.”

“More improvements could be done if the legal framework, Commonwealth Act 1940, would be updated. So that everything would be addressed, the improvements would be included under a new legal framework,” he added.

Meanwhile, despite suspending 86 BI employees allegedly involved in the pastillas scam, Guevarra said there is no fear of a shortage of personnel since they could reassign those from the office and other field units to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminals.

He added that BI Commissioner Jaime Morente has not mentioned any problem concerning the lack of personnel at the airports.

The justice chief, however, gave assurance that there would be enough BI personnel stationed at the NAIA terminals to attend to arriving and departing passengers since they could pull out those assigned at offices and at airports in provinces that have low volume of travelers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and relocate them to NAIA.

“We have many office terminals that are not very active, I mean, the regional airports and terminals, because of the restrictions on travel. So there are still many available manpower not only in Metro Manila, but also in the regional offices of the bureau,” Guevarra said.

“If need be, I guess the commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration can authorize the transfer or reassignment of some of these immigration personnel in the field to the major airports or even from the head office, if necessary,” he added.