BI targetting to finalize hiring of 195 immigration officers
THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) said it is targetting to finalize the hiring of 195 immigration officers by the yearend to deploy the new officers for by the first quarter of 2022.
BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said the bureau’s personnel selection board is currently fast tracking the process of selecting the new immigration inspectors so they could be deployed to the country’s major airports in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, as well as border crossing stations in the south by January next year.
Earlier this month, the Bureau conducted online interviews to aspiring immigration officers. Hundreds of applicants were interviewed by Bureau heads after hurdling their online examination.
“The list of qualified applicants will be submitted to the Department of Justice (DOJ), who will then select those who will be hired,” said Morente. “Upon hiring, these new immigration officers could be trained right away and deployed to serve the traveling public,” Morente said.
He stressed that the new batch of recruits will have to undergo three-month training on immigration laws, rules, and procedures prior to getting their field assignments as border control officers of the country.
According to BI acting personnel chief Grifton Medina, the bureau is expected to recruit another batch of more than a hundred new immigration officers early next year to further augment the number of personnel manning the ports.
Medina said the bureau is also expediting the promotion of some 131 personnel occupying the position of Immigration Officer I who have applied for promotion to the rank of Immigration Officer II.
“Their promotions will naturally lead to additional job vacancies in our plantilla which we will have to fill up to address our perennial problem of manpower shortage at the airports,” he added.
It was learned that there are around 450 BI officers assigned to the NAIA, with 98 newly-hired officers who are undergoing on-the-job training on the conduct of immigration formalities for arriving and departing passengers.
The number of flights and passengers at the NAIA has remained very low compared to previous years due to continuing restrictions on the entry of foreign tourists imposed when the pandemic began in March last year.
