The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has warned foreigners who are holders of 9G visas that were fraudulently acquired by bogus companies to immediately report to the Immigration office to avoid being arrested.
BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said the 30-day grace period given to foreigners with 9G visas had already expired last Dec. 31, 2023, for their chance to downgrade the status of their stay in the country.
“We do not yet have the official number of foreigners with 9G visas, but I think Chinese nationals top the list of foreigners that appliedfor the 9G visas endorsed by fake employers, followed by Vietnamese,” she said.
The lawful cost of a 9G visa is P130,000 for one year and P140,000 fortwo years. The longer the validity, the higher its cost, and the processing time is almost a month.
However, according to an immigration officer, a foreigner wanting to get 9G through a pre-arranged visa scheme needs to shell outadditional money of between P100,000 and P150,000 each, on top of the regular visa cost, to be able to get the working visa in just a week.
The BI will coordinate with the National Bureau of Investigation to dig deeper into the illegal issuance of 9G visas in which four BI lawyers were implicated.
“We have reorganized the visa-issuance procedures, revamped from top to bottom, including the procedures in accepting, reviewing, and assessing, up until the issuing of the visas. We believe more than a thousand foreigners were petitioned by fake companies,” BI Chief Norman Tansingco said.
On Thursday, the BI ordered some 2,000 foreigners to leave the country after they were found to be staying on 9G visas through a prearranged employment scheme allegedly controlled by four immigration lawyers.
BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said the four immigration lawyers allegedly involved in the issuance of prearranged employment (9G) visas to fake corporations have been relieved since December last year.
She said that the bureau’s Verification and Compliance Division (VCD) found 459 applications that were issued visas in 2023 were petitioned by fake companies, saying this illegal activity could have been operating since 2019.
Based on an unofficial estimate, at least 2,000 foreigners have beenissued 9G visas since 2019 through pre-arranged visa schemes petitioned by fake employers.
Meanwhile, BI urged registered foreign nationals to take advantage of the virtual Annual Report, introduced to streamline the reporting process.
Under Philippine laws, aliens holding immigrant and non-immigrant visas, who were issued an alien certificate of registration identity card (ACR I-Card) are required to present themselves to the bureau for the first 60 days of the year for the annual report.
Tansingco emphasized the benefits of the virtual option, allowing foreign nationals living in the country to fulfill their annual reporting obligations through an end-to-end online process.
Tansingco said the virtual option aims to provide convenience while maintaining compliance through an online registration platform.