The Bureau of Immigration will retrench more than 1,000 employees next week after President Rodrigo Duterte disallowed the use of revenues collected from the bureau’s express lane fund to pay for the salaries and overtime fees of the affected contractual and job order workers.
On the average, the bureau has collected more than P1.2 billion annually from express lane fees—the only source of money to pay for the salaries of confidential agents as well as for overtime services rendered by BI personnel.
The House appropriations committee earlier insisted that BI express lane fees be deposited in the National Treasury as income of the general fund.
The Immigration Officers’ Association of the Philippines has already appealed to Duterte to reverse his decision, saying it would paralyze the agency’s operation in international airports, subports, field offices and main office.
The IOAP said the bureau should have at least 4,000 employees nationwide to carry out its mandated duties.
“At present, we have only 1,696 regular employees while there are more than 900 contractual, casual and job order workers,” the group said.
“These contractual and job order workers complement the BI’s workforce not only in the main office, airports, provincial offices but even in remote border crossing station and filed offices like Taganak.”
IOAP, in a letter to the President, warned that disallowing the use of express lane funds will automatically result to the displacement of about 1,000 or 37 percent of the bureau’s workforce before the second week of January this year.
“Undermanned subports, field offices and borders crossing stations will be vulnerable to terrorists and will compromise the national security,” the IOAP said. “Confidential agents, job orders and computer personnel comprise 37 percent of the total workforce of the bureau.”
