THE airport branch of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) today exudes an atmosphere of calm and orderliness so unlike a few years before, when it seemed an agency totally out of control.
Two years ago some BI officers, or IOs, on duty could choose their own schedules and the booth they will stay in. Sources within the bureau said this was tolerated so they could allow with impunity the departure from the country of some illegal Filipino migrants; for a hefty fee, of course. Likewise, some pundits believe this is how travelers with ill intentions or checkered backgrounds enter the country’s borders.
Human trafficking of Filipinos was made possible with the assistance of illegal recruiters who have struck an arrangement with some corrupt IOs, persons familiar with the matter said. A “coding” reveals the identities of workers who are willing to come up with the fee simply to find work abroad.
Other IOs were also after the so-called overtime pay, a substantial amount that is larger than their regular salaries, which are extracted from foreigners in exchange for the speedy processing of their permits.
For almost two years, too, the airport’s arrival area was in chaos as arriving passengers stand in line for hours before having their passport stamped by a single IO in a booth originally designed for four.
Inheritance
BRIEFED on the goings-on at the premier gateway, President Duterte, with his usual no-nonsense approach to solving knotty problems, axed the overtime pay. It was with the total concurrence of Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, who declared the overtime pay illegal.
Dismayed by the loss of such hefty sums, 32 IOs left their post, never to return. Some filed for early retirement. Their absence was not missed, albeit many simply tried to avoid prosecution for some misdeeds, according to sources within the bureau.
Immediately, IOs in various ports across the country were called in to fill the vacuum at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia). The agency also went on a hiring spree for new immigration cadets to undergo training.
This is the bureau inherited by Dennis Robles, Immigration Officer Supervising Office II, at the Naia. A veteran of many years, he was unscathed by the mischief going on around him, saying: “I have few needs. Invite me for a cup of coffee and that would be fine for me.”
The BusinessMirror found Robles bent forward on his desk, the glow of a computer screen reflected on his face. He was trying to manage in orderly fashion the schedule of each of nearly 300 agents on duty.
Matrix
ROBLES is one of the very few immigration officers who thought of finally bringing the bureau into the digital age.
He was preparing a matrix “that would allow my subordinates to go on leave, swap schedules with fellow officers but maintain airport operations humming efficiently.”
“We used to do this manually,” Robles said, tapping keys in between sips. That time, he said, schedules were arranged for each employee through pen and paper; the result has always been chaotic.
According to Robles, like anybody who works for a company or agency that operates 24/7, BI employees have to follow a three-shift timetable: sunriser, which is from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.; mid-shift, from 3 to 11 p.m.; and graveyard, from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m. the next day.
“But today, going to work is not as straightforward as one might think,” Robles said, adding that supervisors must also determine whether the IO would be assigned to the departure or arrival booth and to what shift he or she would belong.
Manual
ROBLES said the bureau is now focused on computerization because he knew from long experience that his fellow employees, aside from attending to their jobs, have social obligations to meet, as well. This includes presiding over birthday parties of their children, going to weddings or going on paternity or maternity leaves.
“Allowing them to attend to their social obligations makes them more efficient,” he said.
Thanks to computers, Robles said he could allow IOs to maintain the integrity of the airport bureau. Likewise, subordinates obligingly process each passenger within the required waiting time.
“The moment swapping schedules is recorded, it will override the source code that tells whether an IO is on duty or on a day off,” Robles explained. “But we will compel them to continue to work.”
Robles, who had devoted 28 years of his life as an immigration officer, said “nobody has thought of this before.”
“There must be a sound operational support for us to counter problems, such as absences. Now I can track their performance,” he added. “If I see a lazy immigrant officer, we will compel them to work.”
Improvements
ACCORDING to Robles, he applies the carrot and the stick to goad IOs to perform well.
“The carrot is the reward; the stick the penalty. If they don’t want to work efficiently, that would be OK but then they’ll be graded, which would be the basis for their promotion.”
Prior to his adoption of the grading by performance, he said the only criterion then was on production.
“But now I want to have four benchmarks: production, knowledge of immigration laws and procedures, knowledge on memoranda on decorum, and attendance,” Robles said. “Of course, if one is frequently absent, that would spell poor performance,” he said, adding: “otherwise, if grading is based only on production then we would not be able to address the long pestering problems of the bureau.”
These problems, he said, include the “wrong application of relevant immigration laws and procedures because they do not study and keep up with the current trends.”
“So we will compel them [IOs] to study. They must open their books so they will learn not to simply exclude any suspected person.”
Grouping
HE said this problem has allowed the world community an excuse to give the country a black eye.
“You know, immigration work is like the work of a doctor. Because of the dynamic changes going on, doctors and IOs must always keep themselves up to date and keep on studying.”
On the other hand, to address congestion, which was the No. 1 complaint against the bureau, Robles said he prepared a “linear grouping,” a technical term that seamlessly arranges the queuing pattern at any of the four passenger terminals of the Naia.
He said if arriving passengers build up in any of the booths, the supervisor simply accesses a Queuing Progress Alert (QPA) on the Viber app.
“This is a coded text message that, with one click, alerts any immigration officer of the following situation: red, congested; yellow, building up; and, green, manageable.”
Robles said Naia 2 has two separate booth groupings, “which are far apart and, therefore, difficult to determine which booth is on red, yellow or green.”
“Once the IO sees that the yellow alert is up on any specific booths, they would know where to station themselves and spread out properly and thereby prevent the congestion that is expected to develop.”
Red alert
ACCORDING to Robles, a red alert would trigger the IOs to scramble and remedy the situation.
“The duty of the receiver who is in green status is to send his immigration officer to a particular area [that is] sending the yellow [message] or red message,” he added.
Robles said the scheme was put in place in December 2016.
“The QPA is reactive in nature because you react on the basis of the buildup,” explained Robles, now the second most senior BI official at the Naia. “Now, we have the Linear Assessment Table, or LAT, which is the grouping of flights per hour in one linear form so the IO can identify the possible congestion way in advance.”
He said the most important aspect of the LAT is the pre-planning stage, which is prepared by the supervisor and would help them look into their duty schedules.
“The LAT would determine how many flights are coming and which booths the passengers would line up. It would also say how many passengers are disembarking and estimate how long each passenger would undergo before his travel document is processed.”
Allowable time
ROBLES explained one passenger lining up for 30 minutes to 45 minutes in a crowded arrival area is the world’s standard. One hour, he added, is still permissible, “depending on the number of arriving flights and the number of personnel on duty.”
He said each IO is allowed to process one passenger every 45 seconds. This is the time spent to look at the validity of the passport, the visa (if required), the pertinent information encoded for e-passports and whether the passenger corresponds to the photograph on the passport.
“At the Naia, our IO does it today in only 30 seconds,” Robles proudly claimed. “That’s the benefit of linear grouping; it’s a proactive move.”
Sometimes, Robles said, the IO would ask more questions, such as whether a passenger has a return ticket, the purpose of the travel and where he or she is staying.
“It would be highly suspicious if a passenger intends to stay in the country for three months with only $300 in [one’s] pocket.”
He added that suspects are subjected to closer scrutiny.
“Yes, this is done on ‘undesirables’ and we have plenty of them. Sometimes the passenger would act in a very arrogant manner; others would submit an expired passport.”
Targeting
ASKED if “profiling” a specific passenger would speed up identification, the 50-something Robles confessed the law prohibits the agency from doing so.
“Do not judge the book by its cover,” he said, citing IOs’ rough guide on how to assess a newly arrived person. “Especially the Chinese, who might land here attired in unfashionable clothing.”
He said profiling is an internal matter to IOs “but not applied generally to Chinese passengers who might not be smart dressers but they are loaded.”
“But what I really want is for all the IOs to go back to our school program so that they could be graded accordingly.”
Robles said most often, many IOs get jaded on their jobs, become inefficient or forget to apply a particular ruling to a particular case, which could prompt a passenger resorting to hiring a lawyer.
“They must study the Bureau of Immigration book. We will compel them to read it again so that they are able to work at their best, on a daily basis,” he added. “There must be a goal set by the administration for them to work efficiently, and that would be the basis for how they are graded.”
Inputs
ROBLES explained that with the aid of the computer, the supervisors would be able to gauge the performance of each subordinate and find out the average number of passenger being processed per counter.
He said the performance of each IO varies and relative to which booth they are assigned.
“For example, the middle counter is always full, so you can’t apply equal workload to those assigned on the sides, which have fewer passengers [in a queue].”
At the same time, he said one has to consider peak seasons, usually in December and during the Holy Week, when many Filipino migrant workers come home to spend time with their loved ones.
“The system will work on it. All we have to do is to record the processed passenger per counter and the system will average the processed passenger on a five-day basis, not on a monthly basis because, sometimes, we have to consider the peak seasons.”
Presently, Naia 1 has seven booths with each booth designed for four IOs, which translates to 28 IOs on duty for every shift.
He said IOs who find themselves assigned in the middle booth for a given shift “would find themselves in another booth the next day, because we rotate the assignment; each booth are numbered to be able to track the IO.”
“So, when I come in for duty, I wouldn’t know what shift I would be assigned and the poor illegal worker would not be able to find me; so the deal is off.”
Overt moves
BASED on what the computer has, Robles said, “we don’t tell the IO to which shift they belong, whether arrival or departure.”
He added the IO would only know upon reporting to the office.
“And then they’ll know where they should be. This is to avoid familiarization and to avoid ‘alam mo na,’” he said with a knowing wink.
Robles said this system would be tried first at Naia 1 terminal before it is applied to the rest of Naia 2 and Naia 3.
He explained that the previous “racket” is for an IO to tell their prospective illegal travelers which booth they are stationed so when they leave the country, they could pass through the customs section even without a valid travel document.
“This system will do away with the ‘coding’ arrangement agreed upon between the BI and some illegal recruiter who will instruct the passenger which booth to go to and who will be the IO who is in cahoots with the recruiter to process their passports.”
New system
ASIDE from ending the coding arrangement, Robles said he has to monitor the activities of some 10 intelligence agents (IA) at Naia 1. These agents are going the rounds of the airport premises looking after passengers who were prevented from entering the country for various reasons.
“One of their duties is to monitor the exclusion area where transit passengers await for their next flight,” Robles said.
He would confront a particular IA and ask for the basis for monitoring a specific passenger or group of passengers.
The transit area is sometimes crowded with various passengers. Some of them were denied entry, while many are simply transiting to another destination.
According to Robles, an IA would sometimes allow an excluded passenger to come into the country in exchange for sums of money, if they are not monitored properly.
“I would count the number of transit passengers and the number of excluded ones and, without somebody looking into this, a few one would be able to slip through.”
He said these data are now accessible through computerization.
Outtakes
SOME excluded passengers would take advantage of the confusion and hide among fellow regular passengers, according to Robles.
When the IA fails to notice them—some actually turn a blind eye, persons familiar with the practice said—then this particular passenger joins the crowd of arriving passengers.
“Sometimes I would be told the excluded passengers have already left but, actually, have boarded a domestic flight,” Robles said. “That means those passengers are still in the country and has not actually left, allowed by some IA agents to go to any local destination before coming back to Manila.”
He said the bureau is currently monitoring those who are engaged in the sale of human organs, especially kidneys. The BI is also keeping an eye on “forced labor,” or migrant workers who unwittingly signed up for lucrative paying jobs, which are actually not true.
“The BI is also on the lookout for traffickers engaged in prostitution,” he added, saying young women from the Philippines are lured into so-called fashion and modeling, only to end up as paid sex workers overseas.
“There are other sub-elements like trafficking fake identity passport, fake overseas employment certificates, or OECs, or sending minors abroad using bogus OECs.”
According to Robles, accusing some of engaging in “human trafficking” is dicey, as some of them might resort to the court and sue the bureau for preventing them to exercise their constitutional right to travel.
“So, as far a human trafficking is concerned, we’re a bit lenient, like for someone who has pleaded to be allowed to leave because the family sold the carabao or some inherited property just for the guy or girl to earn a decent living abroad.”
Image credits: Nonie Reyes