Wrong interpretation costs BI nearly P1B

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has lost P869 million due to its wrong interpretation of President Rodrigo Duterte’s veto message on express lane collections.

The Commission on Audit (CoA), in its annual audit report, said the BI stopped the collection of the P500 fee for the quick or same day release of documents of foreigners applying for registration, extension of stay, conversion of status and legalization in 2017.

State auditors said the bureau erred in interpreting Duterte’s directive in December 2016 stopping the use of express lane fees for the overtime payment and healthcare premium of casual and contractual personnel, confidential agents and job order employees, augmentation of salaries of personnel.

“The team believes it is only the use of express lane charges collected that was vetoed by the President and not the collection from express lane charges inasmuch as the veto message also provides that ‘the collected fees from the express lane charges should now be deposited as income of the General Fund,’” CoA said.

“The termination of the said collections resulted in the loss of income on the part of the government that could have been utilized for the improvement of the economy,” it added.

Due to the BI’s misreading of the President’s veto, auditors said 2017 collections dropped by 60 percent or P869 million from the previous year’s revenue of P1.437 billion after BI stopped collecting from express lane charges starting in June 2017.

While that is a loss for the BI, overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who traveled during the period of August 2012 to April 2018 can now claim their terminal fee refund at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) by presenting a copy of their tickets with locator code and their passports for identification.

Ed Monreal, general manager of Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), said OFW may proceed to the ground floor of the MIAA administration building 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday to Friday, except during holidays.

Last year, MIAA signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with all the airline officials that paved the way for the abolition of the collection of the “terminal fee” from OFW.

The agreement was implemented in April 2017 and all OFW are now exempted from paying the P550 airport’s terminal fee.

Meanwhile, the immigration bureau has started issuing travel cards for international passengers at NAIA.

The new cards are regarded as a legal document used to obtain information from travelers which are not provided in their passports and give additional record of a person’s entry and departure to and from a particular country.

Every arrival and departure card is surrendered by a passenger to the primary immigration inspector upon his arrival or before his departure.

BI OIC Deputy Commissioner Marc Red Mariñas, who heads the Bureau’s Port Operations Division, said travelers are now required to write their full name, nationality, passport number, contact number, flight/voyage number, purpose of trip, occupation, port of exit/destination, and their address here and abroad for security purposes.