Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Call in the military.
This is the plan of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) if the situation at the country’s international airports worsens due to lack personnel manning immigration counters.
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno says the scheme is practiced in other countries where military personnel are deployed in airports.
“Meron kami [We have] plan B, plan C, plan D. We have asked military to train people just in case, with help of Civil Service Institute (commission),” he said.
But Diokno says calling in the military would only happen in a worst case scenario.
Some Immigration personnel have not showed up for work, others filed notices of departure or leave over non-payment of overtime work.
Read: BI dealing with lack of personnel amid overtime pay issue
This, after President Rodrigo Duterte vetoed a provision in the 2017 budget stopping the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to use fees collected from the Express Lane Fund (ELF) for the overtime pay of its personnel.
Diokno, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, and Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente met Thursday at the DBM office.
Diokno said he only informed them that there’s no way the President’s veto can be revoked.
A solution would be for the BI to step up hiring new personnel, since there are at present more than 900 unfilled positions in the agency.
President Duterte has said using the express lane funds for overtime pay of BI personnel had no legal basis, and that this should be deposited as income to the general fund, along with other such government fees.
Diokno explained, “What occurs is an illegal augmentation of their pay. Through the Express Lane Fees, they created another compensation scheme, separate from what all other government officials and employees follow. “
For this year, BI employees would have to source their overtime pay from a separate item of P228 million in the bureau’s budget.
The Budget department also found that immigration officers and employees were paid on the average, overtime pay of 200 percent of their monthly basic salary.
Diokno notes, civil service and DBM regulations only allow maximum overtime pay of 50 percent of the base pay.
