ALL personnel manning international ports have been banned from going on leave this Lenten break, according to Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Norman Tansingco.
This, he said, is to make sure that adequate manpower is available to service the traveling public before, during and after the Holy Week, as in fact, personnel orders temporarily deploying almost 70 additional personnel had been issued to augment manpower at major international airports, and have mobile counters on standby to help process travelers.
The BI chief explained that the ban on leave, which started March 15 and ends April 1, was done to ensure that all immigration booths at the airports are fully manned to process the large volume of passengers who are expected to enter and leave the country during the long holidays.
Tansingco bared that the prohibition applies to all employees assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and all other international ports of entry and exit nationwide.
The purpose of the action, he said, is to ensure that immigration services to the traveling public are not interrupted during the Lenten break when there is a definite upsurge in passenger volume at the airports.
“We assure the traveling public that our counters are fully manned to process them in our counters,” he said.
The BI said that it projects around 39 to 44 thousand arrivals per day in the next few days, while they expect around 40 to 44 thousand international departures. The BI Chief said that they expect the volume of departing passengers to rise by Wednesday, while the volume of arriving passengers is expected to rise by Sunday.
