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By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
IT is now more difficult for undesirable aliens,
including foreign terrorists and criminals, to get into the country.
“This is because we have already put in place
a modernized, efficient and automated border control system, giving
us the capability to monitor and regulate the entry of foreigners in
any ports of entry in the country,” Immigration Commissioner
Marcelino Libanan disclosed on Thursday.
He said the computer-based wide area network
(WAN) project has so far resulted in the electronic link-up of five
international airports and nine immigration field offices throughout
the country, including the two terminals of the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport.
“Through this project, the BI [Bureau of
Immigration] can now access the records and information of
foreigners living outside Metro Manila and verify their admission
and immigration status,” Libanan said.
He also disclosed that the process of exchanging
and relaying information among the bureau’s different field and
district offices can now be done in seconds because of the computer
link-up.
The other places where the WAN is now
operational are the airports in Mactan (Cebu), Clark (Pampanga) and
Davao and the bureau’s offices in the cities of Baguio, Batangas,
Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, Laoag, Naga, and Olongapo.
Libanan also disclosed that the project is just
in its initial phase because the program will ultimately extend to
the other sub-ports in the country.
He also assured the transacting public that the
database of foreigners staying in the country cannot be penetrated
or accessed by computer hackers because of its high-level security
features.
Immigration Asociate Commissioner Roy Almoro
said the WAN will soon be integrated with the bureau’s newly
launched Visa Issuance Made Simple (VIMS) project so that foreigners
in the provinces need no longer travel to Manila to file their visa
applications.
Almoro said the bureau’s information
technology specialists are now in the process of encoding and
transmitting data in connection with the implementation of the VIMS
in the bureau’s field offices nationwide.
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