Senator Francis Pangilinan on Thursday exhorted Malacañang to order the creation of a task force to be led by the Justice department that will look into the presence and activities of Chinese nationals in the country.
He made the pitch as he raised an alarm over the possibility of the foreign nationals’ “soft invasion” in the Philippines with the entry here of about four million Chinese since 2017.
He says the inter-agency task force may be composed of the Bureau of Immigration, National Bureau of Investigation, Department of Labor and Employment, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and the Department of National Defense.
“We should be alerted. If not, we might make out one day that the Philippines is no longer ours,” Pangilinan said.
“We must be on guard. If not, the next thing we know is we are already sharing our bed with the enemy.”
Pangilinan says not all the Chinese nationals in the country are undesirable. Many have lived in the Philippines for years and have become one among Filipinos.
But the surge in their numbers to millions in the past few years should not be overlooked, especially in light of the territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea and over the reports of some of their illegal activities.
It was said during an earlier Senate hearing that around four million Chinese nationals had entered the country in the last three years.
“The BI can take off from this figure and find out where these four million Chinese are and how they entered the country and for what purpose.
Pangilinan says the DOLE should check their employment records and their work conditions. These basic records should be available if they are, indeed, legally staying in the country.