Gov’t expects more Chinese, Indian visitors with new visa system

MANILA, Philippines - The government expects more investors and tourists — especially from China and India — visiting the Philippines as it implements a “liberalized" system of granting visas to foreigners.

In a statement released on Monday, Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said the agency had put in place the PVUA or the pre-arranged visa upon arrival system wherein visas of foreigners traveling to the Philippines would be processed from their countries of origin.

He said the new process would also require foreign chambers of commerce in the Philippines “to vouch for the good character of visiting foreign nationals."

Libanan said the new system would also help curb human trafficking in the Philippines.

“The sponsoring organizations would be the ones to be in charge of the visiting foreigners in case that he would have to leave so this process curbs human smuggling instead of providing a loophole for this illegal activity as purported by crime syndicates," he said.

“This allows Philippine authorities to gain information on the characters and profiles of visiting foreigners instead of being in the dark in tracking down foreigners smuggled into the country by human smuggling syndicates, while at the same time facilitating the granting of visas to legitimate investors and tourists," he added.

Beneficiaries

The PVUA is expected to lead to the influx of Chinese and Indian visitors to the Philippines.

In an interview with radio dzBB on Sunday, Libanan said the PVUA would benefit Chinese and Indian nationals. The two countries are in the bureau’s list of restricted countries.

According to the commissioner, the pre-arranged visa is no longer a new system, as it has been implemented on the visa applications of Chinese nationals since 2002.

However, he said the system could not be fully enforced because India and China are included in the bureau’s list of restricted countries.

“Noon pa ito. Na-implement na ito sa mga Chinese since 2002. Pero hindi ma-implement sa Indians at sa Chinese nationals nang buo dahil restricted sila sa classification natin, " he said.

With the new PVUA system, Libanan expects that the Philippines will have more investors and tourists from China and India.

According to Libanan, out of some 30 million Chinese tourists, only about 60,000 visit the Philippines yearly. Meanwhile, out of the 10 million Indian tourists, only 15,000 visit the country annually. - ARCS, GMANews.TV

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