‘No 4M Chinese in PH,’ says BI

THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) has refuted the claim of opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros that the number of Chinese nationals who have entered the country since 2017 has surpassed the total population of Quezon City.

BI spokesperson Dana Krizia Sandoval, appearing last Friday, November 13, 2020, at the ‘Meet the Press/Report to the Nation’ media forum of the National Press Club (NPC), said that based on immigration records from 2013 to 2019, Chinese tourist arrivals have been pegged at 6.4 million while departure for the same period was at 5.4 million.

“Since 2013 to 2019 arrivals of Chinese tourists, businessmen and others is 6.4 million but there was 5.4 million departure in the same period thus Chinese presence in the country is not in the million,” Sandoval said.

With that, Sandoval said the number of Chinese that is still in the country is around 500,000, contrary to the claim of Hontiveros in her press statement that there now at least 4 million Chinese in the country.

Hontiveros made the claim during the Senate hearings conducted by her committee, the

Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, looking into the so-called “pastillas scandal” at the BI where each arriving Chinese allegedly paid P10,000 to facilitate their entry into the country.

Hontiveros said her figure of 4 million was based on the BI’s own records.

But her conclusion was flatly rejected by the bureau.

In the same forum, Sandoval also bared that a total of 86 BI personnel has been relieved from their respective posts after being linked to the pastillas scandal.

Most of those tagged by the ongoing separate investigation being conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) were assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

As a long-term solution to the repeated scandal of ‘human trafficking’ being facilitated by BI personnel themselves, Sandoval said they are now hoping that Congress would now hasten the passage of a new law that would reorganize the entire bureau and update the ‘Philippine Immigration Act’ that was passed in 1940 by the then Philippine Commonwealth.

Aside from pay increase, the proposed new immigration law would empower the BI commissioner to directly discipline erring officials and employees of the agency.

She noted that currently, the entry salary for BI employees is only P16,000 a month and they proposed to increase this to at least P30,000.

Sandoval also pointed out that until now, the disciplinary power of the BI commissioner is only “recommendatory” with the final decision against erring officials and employees to be made by the secretary of the Department of Justice.