Yearender: 2010 year of reforms and challenges for BI

The year 2010 faced the Bureau of Immigration (BI) with reforms and challenges left behind by the previous administration and pursued relentlessly by a career official who was appointed as acting commissioner by Justice Secretary Leila De Lima.

The agency, known as the gatekeeper of the country’s security against foreign lawlessness and the window of the Philippines for international passengers, has continued to leave its mark as graft-free government agency as certified by the abolished Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC).

The bureau has continued its tasks as regulator of foreign nationals in the country where it processed and validated the travel documents of international passengers.

Upon assuming the post as BI acting commissioner in July, Ronaldo Ledesma — the highest ranking career official of the bureau — implemented a series of reforms aimed at ridding the agency of corrupt and inept personnel in pursuit of President Benigno Aquino’s slogan of straight path governance.

Ledesma sacked 39 employees and suspended 29 others after being charged with extortion, grave misconduct, gross insubordination, neglect of duty, and conduct prejudicial to the interest of the service.

“These dismissal orders are already long overdue. I have to implement them, lest we be accused of being tolerant of any wrongdoing in our bureau,” Ledesma said.

The bureau, however, never ceased to have an honest public servant when in November, Immigration Officer Amando Amisola, returned an envelope containing $10,000 in cash to an outbound passenger at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). He has been promoted to supervisor for his honesty and deep sense of professionalism.

The bureau also implemented a wide-range of cleansing the ranks of confidential agents where it dismissed from the service more than 400 temporary employees whose tasked were deemed redundant and as a result of political favors.

De Lima has even urged the bureau’s employees to support the “house cleaning” efforts that are being undertaken to reform and eradicate corruption in the agency.

Aside from cleansing the bureau of corrupt, inept and redundant employees, Ledesma also implemented a strict policy of requiring all its officials and employees to personally register their daily attendance via a biometrics-based bundy clock system. He directed the bureau’s personnel to strictly observe a 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. work schedule.

The order covers all BI employees, including division and section chiefs, supervisors, unit heads, confidential agents, and co-terminus/contractual employees.

The bureau also adopted a “quarantine” system where all offices at the agency’s main building in Intramuros, Manila were ordered closed by 6 p.m., or 30 minutes after the official working hours.

Ledesma issued the directive after learning that during the previous administration some transactions at the bureau were done after office hours. The directive also saved the bureau on its electricity bills.

In its campaign against foreign fugitive, the bureau beefed up its Interpol Unit headed by lawyer Floro Balato Jr., with the deployment of six additional immigration intelligence agents to increase the unit’s manpower and improve its operational strength.

It also placed the unit under the direct supervision of the BI intelligence division headed by lawyer Faisal Hussin.

As of December, the bureau has deported a total of 15 foreign fugitives since Ledesma was appointed as officer-in-charge in July. Among those that were deported was an American pedophile included in the US government’s list of most wanted fugitives.

The bureau also contributed to the government campaign against human trafficking by offloading more than 4,000 Filipino travelers from leaving the international airports in Manila, Pampanga and Cebu.

“Most of the passengers were offloaded on suspicion that they are “tourist workers” or undocumented overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) disguised as tourists,” Ledesma explained as he disclosed that the BI’s drive against human trafficking has never gained so much momentum as suspected victims of human trafficking and illegal recruitment are being offloaded by the hundreds daily at the airports.

It also formed a special team called Trafficking in Person Unit (TPU) tasked to go after foreigners involved in human smuggling.

The bureau also barred from entering the country a number of foreigners without any valid visas, thus, considered to be a public charge because they don’t have financial capacities to support them while in the Philippines.

Ledesma also cancelled the contract of the arrival/departure cards being distributed to international passengers after the controversies arose from having a photograph of the Chief Executive and then of that of a beauty surgeon whose company was asked to place an advertisement.

The bureau also recorded a total of 2,562,505 international passengers visited the country last November compared to the 2,190,114 who arrived in the same period in 2009.

Ledesma added that the country is on track to attain its target of attracting at least 3 million tourists in 2010 considering that the country usually experience a peak in foreigner arrivals during the Christmas season. Conrado Ching, Daily Tribune