Philippine Immigration

SATELLITE offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of Immigration will be established in key cities nationwide to bring their services more accessible to those living outside Metro Manila.

In Executive Order 748, President Arroyo ordered the creation of regional offices of the department in Bacolod City, Butuan City, Puerto Princesa City, Baguio City, General Santos City, and Cotabato City which will process and issue passports and extend other consular services not just for Filipinos but also foreigners as well.

Regional consular offices will be headed by a ranking officer and will be manned by “home-based personnel and locally-hired employees,” the President said in the executive order.

Continue on Manila Standard Today

THE Bureau of Immigration is pushing for a new visa that will allow foreign investors in specified businesses to stay indefinitely as long as they provide employment for at least 10 Filipinos.

Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said the implementing guidelines for the special non-immigrant visa was finalized following a series of public hearings at the bureau’s Manila office attended by different foreign chambers.

“This program is our contribution to the efforts of the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to generate more jobs for our countrymen and spur the growth of investments and businesses in our country,” the Immigration chief said.

Continue on Manila Standard Today

AT least 51,000 expatriates have reacquired their Philippine citizenship under the Dual Citizenship Law, which took effect four years ago, Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said yesterday.

Libanan, a former congressman who was one of the authors of the law, directed an eight-member task force to expedite the processing of applications.

Task force head Arvin Santos said an applicant needs only to pay a processing fee of P3,000 and his or her application will be processed immediately if all the required documents have been submitted.

Continue on Manila Standard Today

...
Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan created the task force in response to Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat’s calls for more immigration officers to process the documents for the Filipino deportees.

Task force head Jose Carandang Jr., concurrent chief of Immigration’s bay service section, said that after the tough times the workers went through in Malaysia, “we want to make it easier for them when they arrive here in the Philippines.”

More on Manila Standard Today

Commissioner Marcelino “Nonoy” Libanan of the Bureau of Immigration has made some enemies in his efforts to ease the processing of visa applications in the country but the positive results from his initiative have earned him more friends and backers.

The 45-year-old Libanan reported that immigration fees in the first five months of the year jumped 31 percent to P812.5 million from P620.7 million year-on-year. The bureau’s revenues were also 25 percent higher than its target of P648.3 million for the five-month period and just P659.3 million short of attaining its full-year P1.47-billion goal for 2008. The bureau posted its highest income ever in 2007, when it registered a take of more than P1.69 billion.

Continue on Manila Standard Today

CHINESE Ambassador to Manila Song Tao commended the Bureau of Immigration over the arrest and deportation of a fugitive wanted for large-scale smuggling of cigarettes and wines in the mainland.

Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said the Beijing envoy expressed his appreciation in a letter to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.

In his letter dated June 18, Song cited “laudable efforts made for the deportation by the Bureau of Immigration” of Cai Wenxian, who was involved in the “heinous crime of smuggling and long wanted by China’s Anti-Smuggling Authority.”

Continue on Manila Standard Today

Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan has spelled out the liberal visa rules for foreigners coming in as investors, a move that drew the support of major business groups.

Libanan said that foreign investors and businessmen duly endorsed by the Board of Investments, Philippine Retirement Authority, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, local business councils, or local as well as foreign chambers of commerce and industry may avail themselves of Immigration’s “visa upon arrival” program.

Businessmen hailed the liberalized visa policy, saying that it “will boost foreign investments and tourist arrivals without giving up the national sovereignty.”

Continue on Manila Standard Today