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THE
chief of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) is proud of his
agency’s “proinvestment” thrust, and highlighted this
fact before members of the consular corps recently.
Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said his
development agenda is geared both at the nation’s
security and creating a proinvestment and good tourism
climate in the Philippines.
“The direction is where the economy is
nurtured, the interest of peace and order secured and
the vision for the future is ensured,” Libanan declared.
His bold pronouncements notwithstanding,
the immigration chief is hounded by allegations that he
has tolerated the abuse of his vaunted proinvestment
visa policy, with the grant of multiyear, multiple-entry
visas to foreigners upon arrival—skirting what would
have been more meticulous screening by the Department of
Foreign Affairs through its consular posts abroad, and
by such agencies as the Board of Investments and the
Department of Tourism, the ones with the real mandate to
encourage business.
Libanan said that since he assumed the
helm of the BI a year ago, it was always his intention
to shift the bureau’s role from that a mere enforcer to
being a pro-investment catalyst with a global
perspective.
He did not explain how he could balance
that aggressive probusiness stance with the requirements
of security in a world haunted by globalized terrorist
operations.
He told his audience that he has been
successful in instituting “positive reforms” in the BI
that helped advance his proinvestment and tourism
agenda. Among these programs, he said, was the launching
of the visa-issuance-made-simpleprogram, where visa
processing and issuances in the BI were simplified and
fast-tracked for the convenience of the transacting
public.
He cited the implementation of the
prearranged visa-upon-arrival program, which not only
attracted foreign businessmen and promoted the
investment climate but also, according to him, helped
eradicate human smuggling in the country’s ports. The
last claim is exactly the opposite of allegations by
critics and BI whistle blowers, who see in the lax
issuance of such visas a great risk that people
pretending to be here for business may actually have
other agenda, and that authorities might no longer be
able to track them as they bear three-year, multiple-
entry visas.
As a result of these twin projects,
Libanan said the BI’s income from January to May stood
at more than P812 million, up by 31 percent, or P191.8
million over the 620.7 million the bureau collected in
the same period last year.
Libanan also mentioned the “no touch, no
contact” policy now enforced at the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport (Naia), which he said drew praise
from foreign governments and improved the bureau’s
image.
“There are many more proinvestment
programs to come, and we shall see to it that the
interests of tourism, trade, commerce, industry are not
left out,” he said.
Libanan cited as well improvements in
the BI’s facilities and services at the airports,
noting, for instance, that all immigration counters at
the Naia are now equipped with passport readers.
He said a national operations center is
now in place that records and keeps track of all
activities and events at the Naia on a 24-hour basis.
The bureau has established an electronic
linkup with the Interpol and other law-enforcement
agencies to strengthen the campaign against foreign
criminals and fugitives from justice, he added.
Efforts to professionalize the bureau’s
rank-and-file and eradicate corruption, he claimed,
catapulted the BI to fourth place among 76 other
government agencies on the list of anticorruption
champions of the Presidential Antigraft Commission.
In January the BI was named
valedictorian by the Civil Service Commission among the
agencies that took part in its performance-management
system and office-performance evaluation system project,
Libanan said. |
