President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made it a core objective of his administration to digitize government services to accelerate and sustain the country’s economic growth in a highly competitive digital world. “Digitalization is the call of today, not of the future — but of the present. It is here. It is needed, and it is needed today,” the President said in his 2023 State of the Nation Address. As the digital revolution reshapes global economies and societies, the government must fully embrace digitalization to provide better services to the people, through its vital frontline services and its back-end functions, he said. The Bureau of Immigration (BI), like other agencies of the government, is well on its way to digitizing its system, despite a limited budget. Immigration Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said the digitalization of the immigration systems and processes will not produce the desired results until the 85-year-old Immigration Act is updated. Viado said House Bill (HB) 118, or the Bureau of Immigration Modernization Law, principally authored by former Immigration Commissioner now 4Ps party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan, has been approved at the committee level. “We look forward to the passage of the modernization law, confident that it will strengthen our capacity to safeguard the nation and deliver efficient services,” said Viado. “Through this, we are fully committed to advancing the president’s vision of Bagong Pilipinas by delivering immigration services that are modern, transparent, and responsive,” he said. Immigration spokesman Dana Sandoval said the immigration law, which was passed in 1940, no longer applies to present conditions, having been crafted when there was still no international flight to the Philippines, and travel was done through ships. “There are so many modern threats (to which) our old law is no longer applicable. Imagine that in our law we can’t let ‘idiots’ enter. Right, we can’t let ‘idiots’ enter our country, which is not applicable to modern times,” Sandoval said. “Even those with ‘epilepsy’ are not allowed in our law, which was signed by the Americans,” she said. The proposed BI modernization bill is one of the 44 priority bills in the Common Legislative Agenda of the 20th Congress — marking a significant milestone in the effort to reform immigration. The bill defines clearer powers and responsibilities, strengthens organizational integrity, and ensures competitive compensation and benefits for immigration officers — recognizing their vital role as frontliners in safeguarding the country’s borders. The proposed law will provide the BI with advanced tools, technologies, and streamlined processes. Apart from updates on visa types and penalties, it also ensures salary increases for BI employees, a move that would greatly benefit employees that are stuck with low salaries, and would allow the agency to recruit fresh graduates from good schools to join government service. The BI will retain in a trust fund “no more than P1.2 billion” of its annual income from fees, fines, and penalties. The money would be used to bankroll the BI’s information technology (IT) projects and build up the capabilities of immigration officers. The salary grades assigned to junior immigration officers would also be bumped up by two notches to allow the BI to attract qualified staff. Because the pay is low, 742 of the BI’s 2,795 permanent positions remain unfilled, translating to a 26 percent vacancy rate. Viado said that by upgrading its infrastructure and adopting state-of-the-art systems, the bureau will be better equipped to detect and prevent illegal activities, including human trafficking, illegal cross-border activities, and other border-related threats. There have been several attempts to either amend or enact a new law that would replace the Immigration Act of 1940. The first, during the time of former Immigration commissioner, now Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, did not even reach first base. The bill was refiled during the watch of former Immigration commissioner and former Pampanga representative and Pagcor Chairman Andrea Domingo and former Immigration commissioner, now 4Ps party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan. It also did not go far. It was again refiled during the time of former Immigration commissioner Jaime Morante in 2016, but it also was not passed.