There is a somewhat complicated Filipino saying that goes: “Hampas sa kalabaw, sa kabayo ang latay.” This speaks of a situation where you hit one person but someone else suffers.
Judging from the Filipino experience of criticizing social ills and problems, I would rather say “Piliin mo ang papaluin mo” or choose wisely who you will hit because we have a tendency to criticize “at large,” where the innocent become collateral damage!
Last Monday evening, Oct. 5, I once again saw and heard what hundreds of Filipinos experience upon arrival at our international airports. Many of them had just come off a plane after four, six, eight or 16 hour flights, depending on where they flew out from.
All they wanted was to get out of the plane, go through the gates at the Bureau of Immigration, retrieve their multiple bags or boxes, book or find the TNV they called, get through traffic and get home!
Once they hit the ground, they inter-mingled and you couldn’t tell who came from where unless you asked. I learned they were a mixed group of OFWs, seafarers and tourists out of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Amsterdam, Germany or Paris.
There were at least 700 to 800 plus passengers, probably more, arriving within minutes of each other, all heading towards the immigration counters.
Little by little they gathered like cars at a toll booth until the crowd of OFWs, Filipinos and foreigners piled up. And that is where the grumbling began.
As I eavesdropped on the Filipinos in the queue, one lady asked why are there so few people at Immigration? Why are there not enough signs for foreigners? Why are there no bollards and cords to guide people?
Don’ they know that there are hundreds of people arriving at this hour? A senior PWD chimed in, saying, “The Philippines is not poor, we are simply rich with thieves who make us poor.”
Once again, in their annoyance or agitation, passengers needed to vent or at least feel that they are achieving something while making pila, all because the DOJ and BI leadership as well as Malacañang have not addressed the deficiency that hassles OFWs most of all.
Is it because they are neither kalabaw nor kabayo in the situation? The NNIC has installed more immigration booths than before as well as electronic passport scanners that work, and there are sufficient bollards and cords available.
But without enough personnel to man booths, watch the bollards and scanners, signs can’t be fixed or put in place. This explains why everything remains mano-mano at the airport. Does this system have anything to do with overtime pay?
This is not the first time I am writing about the serious lack of manpower on the Bureau of Immigration side every time multiple aircraft arrive at NAIA.
Even our friends at the Bureau of Immigration admit that they are very undermanned, especially during peak hours or surge of arrivals, particularly during the Christmas and Easter holidays.
What is shocking about this deficiency or defect is that the BI does not necessarily need a major addition of personnel at airport arrivals. Ideally, I would guess that doubling or giving the BI twice the manpower during peak arrivals or departures ONLY would suffice.
I even asked an immigration officer at NAIA T3 exactly how many more do they need at the arrival/departure gates, and the man, in sheer desperation, replied, “Kahit sampu lang, sir (per shift), malaking tulong na.” Is that too much to ask?
There is a principle or lesson in marketing and management that instructs students and leaders that before you make plans to make a product, sell a product to meet your customer’s needs, you must first walk through your customer’s pain.
You can have a good product or a captured market, but unless you walk through your customer’s pain, you will not be able to avoid growing pains and difficulties. You miss out on added benefits and lose on recurring problems.
You need to know where people are coming from in order to understand their views and reactions. For instance, most people arriving from Europe, Middle East, China, Japan and the US went through very modern immigration facilities manned by sufficient numbers of well trained personnel. Speed and efficiency was their last memory of immigration.
Walking through the pain of Filipinos leaving or arriving at the airport teaches us that it often comes with pre-departure anxiety, starting with security and baggage checks on size and weight, or how big a power bank you can carry.
I discovered that passengers on flights in and out of Dubai, EU were not screened on the size of their power banks. Out of Amsterdam, security no longer requires passengers to bring out laptops.
In contrast, there are many tales of Filipinas being stopped or off loaded because they are single and profiled as potential victims of human trafficking.
There is also our imbedded fear of authority figures and our shared sense of shame and disrespect of having to make pila, especially where there are no clear lines or cords because some people just don’t want to use them under the mano-mano system.
The BI needs more people as well as our support. Use your socmed platforms to pressure DOJ and Malacañang to invest in and equip the BI. God bless you.
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Email: utalk2ctalk@gmail.com