The Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced the deployment of 67 newly-hired immigration officers to the country's international airports after graduating on Wednesday, October 2. According to Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente, this is part of the agency's continuous efforts to improve its services to the travelling public. "The graduation of the officers is timed prior to the projected influx of passenger in the airport in the next few months for the upcoming South East Asian Games, and at the same time as the holiday rush begins," Morente said.
Morente said that the new recruits underwent the Border Control Officers Module (BCOM), a six-month long training designed to teach immigration laws, rules, and procedures. "The 67 graduates, which consist of 38 females and 29 males, were divided into two classes. They began training at the Philippine Immigration Academy in Clark Pampanga last April. After three months, they were assigned at the airports and the Bureau of Immigration's main office for another three months as on-the-job trainees," Morente said. Morente further shared that aside from the usual lectures, it is the first time that they have included Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Response seminar in the program. "This kind of training adheres with the changing times. We want our officers to be fully prepared in the field even during emergency situations," he said. The Bureau's Port Operations Division (POD) Chief Grifton Medina likewise disclosed that as part of their continuous effort to address the problem of congestion in our airports, all graduates have signed a lock-in contract with the POD stating that they will be deployed in our ports for a minimum of two years. "We want the concept of genuine public service to be inculcated in our front-liners. We need them to be committed mentally and physically to the job," Medina added.