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THE Philippine government is about to make the
tourist visa—a very important travel document and official
authorization for entry and stay—obsolete.
The Bureau of Immigration has
announced that foreigners with temporary visitor’s visas may
extend their stay in the Philippines every two months and up to 16
months without prior approval from the immigration office.
This rule is fraught with danger.
The government must authorize every extension of visa. An extension
must be requested and applied for. Without this safeguard, it could
lose count of foreigners who have extended their stay. A responsible
government must keep accurate figures on arriving, overstaying and
departing foreigners.
A visa is a contract between a
government and a foreigner that defines the conditions of his stay.
It is the government’s duty to check on compliance and determine
if violations were made.
At a minimum, the government
could give each tourist a six-month stay, after which official
extension must be granted by the state.
After 16 months, according to
Commissioner Marcelino Libanan, a foreigner may extend his stay by
another eight months, up to 24 months if his application is approved
by the chief of the bureau’s immigration regulation division.
Libanan’s order takes effective
immediately. It directs the visa extension office to expedite the
processing of pending applications for extension of stay.
What prompted Libanan to issue
the new order? Well, he said he was heartened by the 21-percent rise
in the number of tourists who extended their stay in the country
during the first semester of the year.
Data from the bureau visa
extension office showed that from January to June this year, a total
of 196,172 applications for extension of stay were approved,
compared to 161,984 approved in the same period last year.
It also showed that total tourist
arrivals for the six-month period increased by 38,755 to 468,281
arrivals. There were only 439,526 arrivals in the same period last
year.
“These statistics indicate that
our country is fast emerging as one of Asia’s most favored tourist
destinations,” Libanan said.
We don’t think numbers alone
could justify the new extension-without-authorization policy.
Extensions of stay and increasing arrivals are fine, but an
important national program such as immigration and tourism needs
safeguards before we throw away the keys to the door.
The immigration regulation
division chief, lawyer Gary Mendoza, said the new policy on visa
extensions applies to all foreign tourists regardless of
nationality.
Previously, foreigners, such as
Indians or Chinese, who must secure entry visas to the Philippines,
were allowed to extend their stay every month up to a total of only
six months.
“Now, any foreigner, whether he
is a visa-required national or not, may extend his stay every two
months up to a total of 16 months without getting prior approval
from the bureau’s management,” Mendoza added.
How did this new immigration rule
come about? Did the immigration office consult with the Department
of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the police and military, or the committees
on immigration in the Senate and the House of Representatives?
We doubt that the BI consulted
with Filipino and foreign chambers of commerce and business
organizations.
We urge a review of the new
immigration rule. There are more important elements to a tourism
program than warm bodies and dollars. These include national
security, the threat to Filipino businesses, dangers to public
health and the stay of unwanted aliens who are probably considered
undesirable by their own governments.
The visa-waiver program
WE should have an active tourism
program to bring in more visitors and catch up with the world in
this important economic and nation-building activity.
The tourist visa rules, however,
must be respected. Requests for extensions should be required and
properly documented.
The Philippines, of course, is a
participant in the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
visa-waiver program. As courtesy to fellow members, Asean countries
waive the visa requirement for citizens of the 10 countries that
comprise the group.
We have also begun, at the
initiative of the Bureau of Immigration, a visa-upon-entry program
for tourists coming from Mainland China. The bureau owes us a report
on the program, especially on the number of Chinese who have visited
and have left the Philippines since the undertaking started.
The United States runs a
visa-waiver program with 27 other countries, including Japan, whose
citizens can visit the US without a visa for up to 90 days.
In July, a new homeland-security
bill expanded eligibility for the program by allowing 12 more
countries to apply: Taiwan, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Israel, Malta, Slovakia and
Uruguay.
The Philippines is light-years
away from qualifying because of the US “refusal rates” rule.
This is the annual percentage of visa applications from a country
that are denied for any reason. US law requires a refusal rate of 3
percent before a country can qualify. The refusal rate for Filipinos
must be 40 percent.
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