Many ‘foreign’ Pinoys not acquiring dual citizenship, govt agency says

MANILA, Philippines - Not many Filipinos abroad are availing of dual citizenship being offered under a five-year-old law, according to an official of the Commission on Overseas Filipinos (CFO).

Golda Roma, acting deputy executive director of the CFO, said most Filipinos who have become foreign citizens have not renewed their Philippine citizenship.

“We have a gap in our data because Filipinos who have acquired foreign citizenship are not required to register as Filipino citizens," Roma told GMANews.TV in an interview on Tuesday.

Republic Act No. 9225 or the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act was passed in August 2003. But the Philippine government only started processing applications for dual citizenship in April 2004 after the Office of the President designated the Bureau of Immigration as the lead implementing agency of the law.

A dual citizen is given the right to hold Philippine passport, vote in Philippine elections, and own real properties in the Philippines. They are also allowed to visit the country and stay in the Philippines for as long as they want.

There are millions of Filipinos who have acquired foreign citizenship. But the Immigration bureau reported last month that only a total of 51,280 applications for dual citizenship had been approved by the government.

The bureau said that of the total approved applications, 34,000 were filed in Philippine consulates abroad, while 17,280 were processed in Manila. Most applicants were Filipino-Americans, followed by Filipino-Canadians, and Filipino-Australians.

Roma refused to give a categorical explanation on why many Filipinos abroad did not renew their Philippine citizenship. “Probably they haven't seen the benefits of re-acquiring a Filipino citizenship or they simply have no time for it and think the process is too arduous."

Guillermo Luz, vice president of the Ayala Foundation Inc, echoed Roma’s views, and urged the government to look into the issue of dual citizenship.

Citing data from the 2006 US Census, Luz said Filipinos had become the second largest minority group in the US with a total of 1.6 million citizens, second only to Mexico.

He said the Philippine government must find out the sentiments of Filipinos overseas about the issue. - Mark Joseph H. Ubalde, GMANews.TV

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