Dual citizenship bill to bring in $10-B — JDV

Speaker Jose de Venecia said yesterday Filipino-Americans could bring in as much as $10 billion in equity investment that could trigger a "housing and real estate boom" in the country with the imminent approval of the Dual Citizenship Bill.

At the same time, De Venecia revealed he met with President Arroyo in Washington during her recent state visit to the United States and "agreed to extend our total support for the approval" of the bill.

Approval could come in mid-August, he said. Congress adjourns on June 5 and will reopen on July 28 for its Third Regular Session.

"This is an even more important measure than the landmark Absentee Balloting Act. It will encourage especially Filipino-Americans to return and invest their money and expertise there," said De Venecia, principal author of the measure in the House and the original proponent of the law that now allows Filipinos overseas to vote in national elections starting in 2004.

De Venecia estimated that even if only 15 percent of 1.5 Filipino-Americans in the US return to invest $50,00 each in the Philippines for the acquisition of real estate, their total investments could hit $10 billion, or more than P520 million.

"This will definitely trigger a real estate and housing boom," said De Venecia. "They constitute a mighty economic force that could lift the industry and spur overall economic recovery."

He said Filipinos in North America represent 30 percent of the global total of Filipino expatriates but account for almost 70 percent of about $4 billion in the annual remittance program which De Venecia conceived in 1967.

De Venecia lauded Mrs. Arroyo and Ambassador Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., chairman of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, and the heads and members of the different political parties in the House for jointly sponsoring HB 4720 – the Dual Citizenship bill – which is a substitute measure incorporating other bills filed since July 2001.

Leading a panel of seven senior House leaders, De Venecia reached agreement with Senate President Franklin Drilon and Majority Leader Loren Legarda to speed up approval of the measure and a few political reform bills during a meeting last Wednesday.

De Venecia said he has asked senior House leaders, among them Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, Senior Deputy Majority Leader Francis Escudero, Rep. Ace Barbers and Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin, to speed up plenary action on HB 4720, now undergoing sponsorship in plenary and is being defended on the floor by Rep. Marcelino Libanan, chairman of the House committee on foreign relations.

The other principal authors of HB 4720 are Gonzales who is also Mandaluyong congressman, Deputy Speaker Emilio Espinosa, Assistant Majority Leader Gonzales, Assistant Majority Leader Wimpy Fuentebella, and Reps. Roque Ablan, Antonio Eduardo Nachura, Joaquin Chipeco, Gerardo Espina, Eduardo Zialcita, Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, Isidro Real, Aniceto Saludo, Douglas Cagas, Jose Apolinario Lozada and Libanan.

De Venecia said more than 80 countries provide dual citizenship for their citizens, as he sought to allay concerns the bill could result in dual allegiance or pose security problems to the country. "We should not be afraid of our citizens," he said.

The bill restores citizenship to Filipinos who automatically lost their citizenship after enactment of Commonwealth Act No. 63.

The new bill will amend Commonwealth Act No. 63 and restore the citizenship of Filipinos who have acquired naturalization in their host countries in North America, the Middle East, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand.

Gonzales and Fuentebella said the change of citizenship was a "force of circumstance" to gain access to economic opportunities in a host country.