NAIA immigration officers reshuffled every 4 months

MANILA, Philippines -  The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has increased the frequency of rotating its personnel assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) from six months to four months to prevent fraternization among employees that could lead to corruption, an official said yesterday.

“Fraternization has long been pinpointed as a major source of corruption among employees in the government. It is this familiarization that we are trying to prevent by implementing this scheme,” BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said.

In a statement, the BI also announced that more than 500 immigration officers (IOs) assigned at NAIA’s three terminals have been rotated.

Morente instructed the bureau’s port operations division chief Marc Red Mariñas to implement the rotation scheme every four months instead of every six months.

The BI believes that six months is more than enough time for employees to fraternize or familiarize with one another, thus, increasing the likelihood of them engaging in corruption.

BI implemented the reassignments of IOs at NAIA last December. Morente said no one was exempted from the movement, saying the rotation scheme was done randomly.