Immigration sacks 20 officers, hiring new ones

MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Immigration  is hiring new officers after relieving  around 20 of its personnel for various offenses, bureau spokesperson Antonette Mangrobang said Saturday.

Mangrobang said many of the sacked immigration officers were relieved in the last six months as part of the bureau’s efforts to clean up its ranks and to intensify its campaign against human trafficking.

She added that many were dismissed for not thoroughly inspecting documents of departing Filipino workers.

“There were violations of our guidelines—as assessed by our justice secretary—with respect to the assessment of Filipino passengers. Some did not go through secondary inspection, which is needed to determine the purpose of travel,” Mangrobang said.

She pointed out that the Inter-Agency Council Against Traffic had issued several “show cause” order for these erring officials to explain their actions.

Mangrobang said the bureau was hiring about 100 new immigration officers to man the posts vacated by the fired officers and other vacancies.

“They were not necessarily dismissed from the service but they have been removed from their posts. They have been performing office work so our operations need additional personnel,” Mangrobang said.

“There is really a need for additional personnel because we can’t clean our ranks and then have our operations and services suffer,” she added.

Mangrobang said the bureau had “increased” its “capacity in international airports so there is really a demand to field more immigration officers.”

“We are in the first cycle of our hiring,” she added.