Bureau of Immigration building. Photo from Bureau of Immmigration website
MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has reshuffled its section chiefs and field officials in a bid to cleanse its image and curb corruption in the agency.
Commissioner Siegfred Mison, the bureau’s officer in charge, on Wednesday announced that the latest reshuffle affected five section chiefs in the main office in Intramuros, Manila, and four acting alien control officers in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Those affected by the latest reassignments were lawyer Vicente Uncad, acting head of the BI-Makati extension office; Jollybert Galleon, acting general services section chief; Ma. Rholyn Uy, acting fingerprint section chief; Joseph Abundo, acting property section chief; and Ma. Alexis Maceda, acting records section chief.
Mison said the reorganization was far from complete as he would be issuing more orders this week reassigning BI officials to key positions, including those currently assigned in Luzon.
“We are not yet through with these personnel changes. We are still finalizing the list of the next batch of employees who will be reassigned,” said Mison on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Lim is now acting alien control officer (ACO) of Glan, Sarangani, and Yolanda de Lucas has been appointed to head the BI field office and border crossing station in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi.
Edwin Bugtong has been designated acting ACO of the BI field office in Kalibo and Melita de Asis, acting ACO of Catbalogan, Samar, according to Mison.
The BI official stressed that the ongoing reassignment of personnel to other positions was needed to uplift the professionalism of the bureau’s employees, most of whom have been doing the same jobs for years.
Earlier, Mison reassigned 19 key personnel supervising hundreds of immigration officers assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and seven other airports nationwide.
The revamp of the airport operations division was implemented after Justice Secretary Leila de Lima replaced four of the bureau’s division chiefs.
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