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BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has actually no authority to issue visas, based on an old law that empowers only the Bureau of Immigration with this mandate, Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan has said.
Libanan said here on Monday that Congress has been reviewing this detail in coming up with measures to modernize the country’s foreign affairs laws.
The Philippine Immigration Act (Commonwealth Act No. 613), for example, dated back to 1940, Libanan told reporters here.
That law still considers Chinese and Indians as "restricted aliens," despite the fact that most member countries of the United Nations could enter the country without visa, according to Libanan.
A recent BI memorandum lifted this restriction.
Libanan was here on Monday for a dialogue with Baguio's foreign community.
Libanan said BI has been helping Congress craft a modern immigration law that "is up with the times."
A BI-sponsored measure, which has been adopted by the House committee on foreign affairs, was on second reading, he said as of Monday.
He said liberalizing travel to the Philippines and improving foreigners' chances at "permanency" would increase the odds that foreign investments would also remain in the country.
"If you are allowed a certain degree of permanency -- you are given permanent residency status, you can plan for the future, you can ask your wife to buy a house, and send your children to school here -- then your economy revolves. Hindi mo na ibabalik sa Korea (You won't bring back your investments to Korea)," Libanan said, referring to the growing number of Koreans coming to the Philippines.
Libanan said he wrote DFA early this year about its visa processing mandate to harmonize and speed up travel documentation requirements for foreigners.
He said foreigners were often asked to queue up at the DFA office for special waivers in cases when their entry documents were challenged.
"But why should they do that? Under the law, it is [the] immigration [bureau] that issues the visa; there is no mandate [for] DFA to issue visas. They issue visas in our consulates because we have no immigration attaches in other countries. That is why we have a problem [with authenticating visas]," Libanan said.
"A visa is issued in another country, but the authentication marks are not relayed to immigration… sometimes government offices do not immediately talk to each other. Visa [issuances] should be a very fast process," he said.
The government resolved this dilemma when it authorized foreigners to acquire visas upon their arrival.
Libanan said he also had to advise the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) to correct a program that allowed retired foreigners to work again in the Philippines, if they decided to relocate here.
PRA has been issuing a special immigration document called the Special Resident Retirement Visa (SRRV) to entice retirees to migrate to the country.
The SRRV has been interpreted as a document that allows retired foreigners to work in the country for a fee that is much lower than the Special Investor Retiree Visa (SIRV) issued to foreign investors.
Both these documents required applicants to post investment bonds, but SIRV required a $75,000 bond, while the SRRV only required a $20,000 bond, said Libanan.
"Many investors withdrew their application for the SIRV and now prefer to acquire the PRA's SRRV, and they proceed to work," he said.
"It's government stewing itself. Instead of obtaining better profits [from these programs], the potential investors simply choose the program that requires the least investments," Libanan said.
"All they do is acquire an alien employment permit, which is not allowed," he said.
Libanan said BI issued 28,877 working visas in 2007, while PRA issued 16,471 retiree visas in 2007.
He said the government would still honor SRRVs that were issued before the program's amendments.
Lee Jun Sung, president of the Korean Association in Baguio, said he was dismayed by these developments.
"You tell us something and then you tell us something else later [about the visa requirements in the country]. It makes us not trust government," he said.
