Thursday, July 24, 2008 308 foreigners barred from RP
A TOTAL of 308 foreigners were prohibited from entering the country during the first six months of the year, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.
BI Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said most of the foreign visitors who were turned back were caught using spurious travel documents, adding that most of passengers were victims of syndicates using Manila as transit point for their human trafficking operations.
"I have already directed that they be placed in our blacklist so that they will not be able to return to our country in the future," Libanan said.
He said the task of screening and profiling foreigners at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) is not only performed by BI personnel at the counters but also by members of the migration compliance and monitoring group (MCMG), a team which double checks the documents of passengers with suspicious profiles.
A breakdown of the nationalities showed that 45 South Koreans and 43 Chinese topped the list followed by 22 Japanese, 22 Americans, 21 Taiwanese, 20 Nigerians, 18 Ghanians, 16 Indians, and 12 Liberians.
Records of the Naia immigration office showed that 120 of the excluded passengers were not properly documented while 97 others were profiled as likely to become public charges.
"A foreigner is deemed a public charge if he could not explain his purpose in coming to the country and if he is unable to show proof of his capacity to support his stay in the Philippines," said Naia-BI operations chief Ferdinand Sampol.
Also included in the list are 62 blacklisted aliens who were foiled in their attempt to slip back into the country.
There were also 16 passengers who have no entry visas; 10 without return tickets; and three who have been previously turned back at the airport. (FP/Sunnex)
