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WHILE
Congress agonizes over the pending bill to rationalize
the grant of incentives to investors, and leading
chambers of commerce are totting up the taxes they’ve
paid and jobs created in the Philippines after a
grilling in the Senate, a quiet revolution of sorts to
draw in so-called “investments” is going on in the
unlikeliest of places: the immigration office and its
posts across the archipelago, recently given
semiautonomous powers.
In a scenario now causing quiet concern
among security authorities, the Bureau of Immigration
(BI), apparently arrogating unto itself sweeping
discretion in vetting “potential investors,” has given
out hundreds of multiple-entry visas to tourists on the
flimsiest claim, sources said, that they might do
business here. The visas are issued upon arrival,
meaning, they did not go through the Department of
Foreign Affairs’ consular posts, and are good for three
years.
Three main points have become cause for
concern in various agencies, according to BusinessMirror
sources:
n First, the security angle, considering
the rather loose screening that has been done on the
hundreds of aliens admitted under two schemes: the
Proinvestment Visa Program and the Multiple-Entry Visa
Upon Arrival (MEV-UA) scheme of immigration, on the mere
say-so of nonstock, nonprofit “friendship associations”
based in, among others, Cebu City and Zamboanga City;
n Second, the revenue angle, considering
the substantial loss to the government because the
aliens concerned, instead of being forced to extend
their original limited visas that were issued upon
arrival, pay only once (P5,000) for a three-year
stay—instead of seeking extensions every six months.
Rough calculations by the BusinessMirror of just the
400-plus aliens cited in a case filed recently with the
Office of the Ombudsman against Immigration
Commissioner Libanan resulted in forgone revenue of P12
million. According to sources, an indefinite hundreds
more have been issued, through Libanan’s trusted aide
Atty. Edgar Mendoza, to foreigners under this setup.
Since BI sources claim that roughly 4,000 such visas in
all have been issued since this program started, the
total revenue loss could easily top P100 million.
In a
speech before the consular corps at the weekend, though,
Commissioner Libanan said the proinvestment stance of
the bureau had, in fact, caused its revenue to
substantially increase (see related story by Paul
Atienza).
n
Third, the economic angle, as the government, instead of
getting genuine, solid investments that spur growth and
create jobs, is getting all sorts of unverified,
would-be “investors.” Worse, if the so-called investors
engage in criminal operations or undesirable “business”
operations like usurious lending, the damage deepens.
Violating its own circulars
The BI’s
generosity in dispensing of the three-year visas
apparently violates the bureau’s own internal controls,
as embodied in several circulars. Among the most glaring
of ignored provisions is Section 7 of Memorandum
Circular MCL-07-001 (“The Guidelines for the Issuance of
Proinvestment Visa Upon Arrival to Certain Individuals
and Under Special Circumstances”). Section 7 clearly
limits this visa to “senior officials of multinational
corporations with operations in the Philippines as
certified to, and endorsed by, the Department of Trade
and Industry-Board of Investments.”
Section
7 limits the visa upon arrival to these people to three
months, subject to payment of $100 (later amended to a
fixed P5,000, apparently to prevent the government from
losing money on account of a stronger peso); with
extensions allowed several times for a six-month
validity for each extension, provided the total period
of stay not exceeding three years.
Despite
the explicit mandate of Section 7 that this visa to a
“potential investor” may only be good for three months
and must be extended for six-month periods each time,
documents obtained by the BusinessMirror show the grant
of one-time, three-year visas in April and May alone, to
several aliens on the say-so of “friendship
associations”—with the Indian Chamber of Commerce and
the Philippine-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry
being the only outrightly business groups.
For
April, such three-year MEV-UAs were granted to 56
persons endorsed by the Cebu-Indian Friendship
Association, based in Guadalupe, Cebu City; 46 endorsed
by the Nanak Darbar Iloilo Inc., based in Iloilo City;
48 endorsed by the Punjabi Phils. Inc. based in Sta.
Catalina, Zamboanga City; 55 endorsed by the Indian
Chamber of Commerce in the Phils., based in Makati
City; 5 endorsed by the Indian-Philippine Welfare
Club, based in Paco, Manila; 2 endorsed by the
Filipino-Indian Importers Association Inc., based in
Makati; and 3, the Philippine-Chinese Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, based in Binondo, Manila.
For the
month of May, more MEV-UAs were issued, endorsed by
these same associations: endorsed by the Cebu-Indian
Friendship Association, 19; Nanak Darbar Iloilo Inc.,
25; Punjabi Phils., 7 ; Indian Chamber of Commerce in
the Phils., 18; and Philippine-Chinese Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, 8. This listing is not even
complete, but based on documents gathered by the
BusinessMirror alone.
Whiz kids?
Among
the lucky recipients of the BI’s generosity, according
to the information filed with the Office of the
Ombudsman, are four Indian nationals who are all
minors—and yet, given the rationale for the
proinvestment visa program, must be, presumably, “whiz
kids” at business—one child aged 11, two aged 13 and one
16-year-old.
The
case, filed in late May 2008 by a group calling itself
“Permanent Employees of the Bureau of Immigration,” had
asked the Ombudsman to investigate motu propio the
apparent abuse of a program ostensibly laid down to
attract investors and boost economic growth but which
has the very real risk of exposing the country to aliens
who are not only unqualified as investors, but whose
activities may be inimical to national interest and
security.
Considering the laxity with which thousands of such
supposed “investors” have entered the country, sources
in the security agencies expressed a real worry that
“some of these people may not really be Indians, but may
belong to some Middle Eastern or Central Asian or South
Asian terrorist cell—who can tell when they have very
similar features?”
The fear
is not without basis, as both US and Philippine
authorities have established the presence of terror
cells in some parts of the country—not just in southern
Mindanao but even in Central and Northern Luzon. “It is
so easy for someone who poses as an Indian national to
go to any part of the country and pretend to be setting
up a money-lending or buy-and-sell or any trading
enterprise; Filipinos are used to that.”
For many
years, security agencies have fretted over the presence
in the South of tens of thousands of Indonesians, many
of them fishermen who have been in the country for years
and married local women. Since Indonesians and Filipinos
look alike and talk alike, it has not been easy picking
out the “economic refugee” from possible terrorists or
troublemakers, sources said.
One
high-profile terrorist who is being hunted by several
countries is the Indonesian terrorist Dulmatin, wanted
for the Bali bombing that killed over 200 people in
2003.. |
