Immigration on heightened alert for Asean leaders’ summit

Passengers that just arrived in NAIA Terminal 1 line up behind the yellow lines of immigration counters. INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON

Immigration officers and agents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) and other ports in the country were placed on heightened alert to ensure security of the upcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Leaders’ summit, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Thursday.

Immigration commissioner Jaime Morente said the BI’s port operations division has raised the alert order different ports in order to thwart the possible entry of international terrorists who might disrupt and cause harm during the international event.

​“It is imperative that our men at the ports exercise extra vigilance in monitoring and screening all arriving foreign passengers so that those intending to disrupt the summit are not able to sneak into our country,” Morente said.

Morente said the BI is coordinating with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the government and their counterparts abroad in seeing to it that the Asean summit is conducted peacefully.

The Philippines is hosting next month’s Asean summit to be attended by heads of state from various countries, including the US, Japan and China.

​The memorandum, issued by ports division chief Marc Red Mariñas on Tuesday, instructed immigration officers to conduct strict arrival and departure formalities and rigid primary inspection on passengers and crewmen, including those of special and chartered flights.

Mariñas also ordered personnel assigned to the BI’s border control and intelligence units (BCIU) to not only monitor and ensure that all passengers pass immigration inspection but also assist in their “profiling.”

Suspicious looking passengers and those with doubtful purposes in visiting the country should be referred and meticulously subjected to secondary inspection by members of the bureau’s travel control and enforcement unit (TCEU).

The memorandum also instructed the members of the BI-Interpol unit at the Naia were instructed to maintain open lines of communication with the bureau’s counter terrorist group (BI-CTG) and intelligence division as well as with their counterparts from other government agencies like the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and the Interpol. /je