Palace OKs use of express lane fees for BI personnel pay hike

This order will be effective Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2019 or until the passage of an Immigration Modernization Law which upgrades the current compensation system of the BI. (File Photo: Bureau of Immigration, Philippines/Facebook)

MANILA — Malacañang has approved the use of express lane fees and other charges collected by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to increase the salaries of their personnel.

Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, by authority of the President, signed Memorandum Order 39 on Sept. 27 but a copy of the document was made public on Tuesday.

“There is a need for an interim measure to augment the salaries of BI employees, in recognition of the indispensability of their functions, the apparent disparity between the basic pay of BI employees and those of agencies performing comparable functions, and to promote the continuous and unhampered delivery of basic government services,” the memo read.

This order will be effective Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2019 or until the passage of an Immigration Modernization Law which upgrades the current compensation system of the BI.

In January 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte barred the BI from using express lane fees to compensate salary and overtime pay of their personnel and instead directed the income to the national treasury.

As a result, immigration officers skipped work amid the suspension of their overtime pay.

Duterte, in his veto message on the 2018 General Appropriations Act, allowed salary and overtime pay to be sourced from express lane fees last year.

The BI is one of the attached agencies of the Department of Justice.