THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) recorded 161,000 international passengers arriving in the Philippines from Dec. 23 to 25, a number equivalent to monthly arrivals during the pandemic years.
“Ang pinakamataas na arrivals na nakita natin ay noong Dec. 23, halos nasa 62,000 ang arrivals at 81 percent ay nanggaling o dumaan sa NAIA,” BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said.
Meanwhile, daily international departures from the country have been at around 30,000, with majority passing through NAIA.
“After New Year magbabaligtad po ‘yan, mas tataas naman ang departures, at kakaunti ang arrivals,” she said.
Many of the arrivals are overseas Filipino workers coming home for the holidays and who go back to work after New Year’s Day.
The BI earlier said that measures have been put in place to ensure the efficient and smooth processing of international passengers during the peak season.
Among those measures is the use of electronic gates, which takes an average of eight to 10 seconds to process each passenger.
“Nagdagdag din tayo ng immigration officers, there are 55 immigration officers that were recently deployed just in time for the holiday season,” Sandoval added.
Apart from those, acting immigration officers as well as augmentation and rapid response teams were deployed to airports in anticipation of the arrivals.
“Since hindi na natin mae-expand ang mga paliparan natin, naglagay tayo ng mga mobile counters para makapagdagdag tayo ng mga tauhan para makapagproseso ng mga pasahero,” she also said. (ABS-CBN News)
