Saturday, September 29, 2007 Chinese can visit RP sans visa if they make P1M deposit each
CHINESE nationals are now allowed to visit the Philippines without a visa.
All a Chinese visitor needs to do is deposit P1 million at the airport.
This is contained in an agreement that the Department of Tourism (DOT), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Bureau of Immigration (BI) signed in line with the government’s tourism promotion.
BI 7 Director Geronimo Rosas said that his office is the implementing agency.
As a matter of policy, Chinese nationals could not enter the country without a visa, unlike people from member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian National (Asean).
The new guidelines provide that Chinese nationals are allowed to come to Cebu or anywhere in the country by batch or by group.
Each Chinese visitor will be required to deposit P1 million upon arrival at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport or any other international airports in the country.
Once a Chinese national has deposited the P1 million, he will be given a receipt and a visa is then issued for him to legally roam around the Philippines.
The P1-million deposit will be returned to the Chinese national when he returns to China. The amount will be forfeited in favor of the Philippine Government in case the visitor violates immigration laws.
Rosas said that if a group of 100 Chinese tourists will arrive, all of them must go back to China together and could not leave for home even if only one of them could not be located.
Clearance
The airline company that will allow erring Chinese nationals to board for China without BI clearance will have to pay a fine of P52,000 per passenger.
The BI may create a special team to process the documentation of Chinese nationals who will come to Cebu.
Meanwhile, BI officers headed by Manuel Ferdinand Arbas went to the Republic of China (Taiwan) upon the invitation of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB).
Department of Justice (DOJ) Acting Secretary Agnes Devanadera, who approved their travel, stated that the immigration officers will discuss matters on further cooperation between Taiwan and Philippines in preventing human smuggling and fugitives.
For several years, many big illegal drug cases involved Chinese and Taiwanese nationals who came to the Philippines without proper documentation.
The mega shabu laboratories discovered in Mandaue City in 2004, for example, were manned by Chinese nationals who are now detained at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center. (EOB)
