Tugade wants more BI officers assigned in airports

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade. INQUIRER photo / JOAN BONDOC

Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade would be requesting the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to assign additional immigration personnel in airports to address long lines.

Tugade on Saturday attributed the airports’ problem on long queue in the lack of immigration officers tending to the high number of passengers going in and out of the country.

He said that he would ask the approval of the BI to add more immigration booths in order to solve the said problem.

“Kung papayag ang Bureau of Immigration, padadagdagan ko ang immigration booths sa airport,” Tugade said in a statement.

(If the Bureau of Immigration would agree, I would want to add more immigration booths in airports.)

“Kung kailangan ninyo ng tao, pwedeng kami na mag-hire at magbayad ng tao. Bigyan lang ninyo ng training” he added.

(If you need people, we can hire and pay them. Just provide their training.)

The transportation chief then asserted that the problem why airports have a long queue particularly in the immigration section was the lack of immigration personnel and not the processing time of documents.

“Ang issue dito ay yung ratio ng passengers to the warm bodies who are doing the processing. Kulang talaga ang tao manning the immigration,” Tugade said.

(The issue here is the ratio of passengers to the warm bodies who are doing the processing. It really lacks the manpower manning the immigration section.) /jpv