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Nearly 5,000 visas were unofficially issued to tourists from India
who came to the Philippines between 2005 and June of 2007, the
Bureau of Immigration said on Friday.
Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan has
ordered the creation of a committee to probe how the 4,843 Indian
nationals entered the country with visas not officially issued by
the Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippine TV network ABS-CBN
reported.
Libanan said the DFA issued 39,495 tourist visas
to Indian nationals in the period under review.
Records show that 4,843 more Indian tourists
entered the country during the same period.
“This means that these almost five thousand
Indians got their visas from questionable sources,” said the
immigration chief, noting that this caused the loss of millions of
pesos in revenues to the national government.
Tourists who enter the country pay about P2,500
or $57 for visa application.
“The government lost over P10 million in fees
from tourist visas from India alone,” he said.
In ordering the investigation, Libanan pointed
out the need to know how this discrepancy happened and to pinpoint
responsibilities “for at stake here is not only uncollected fees
by the Department of Foreign Affairs but the integrity of our system
in issuing visas to foreigners.”
“With knowing how the system worked, we can go
down to knowing who made money from this illegal process and ruined
the integrity of our visa,” he said.
-- Xinhua
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