24,000 former Pinoy citizens get dual citizenship

Some 24,000 former Filipinos have reacquired their Philippine citizenship after being granted dual citizenship, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said yesterday.

Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. reported that a total of 23,946 applications for dual citizenship have been approved by the bureau as of Jan. 2.

Fernandez revealed that a total of 10,498 of the approved applications were filed with the main office of the bureau in Intramuros, Manila while the rest were filed with various Philippine consulates abroad.

The BI chief said those granted dual citizenship will now enjoy the rights and privileges of Filipinos under Republic Act 9225, or the Citizenship Reacquisition and Retention Act that was passed by Congress in 2003.

Under this law, former natural-born Filipinos who later became naturalized citizens of other countries can reacquire their Philippine citizenship. It was enacted primarily to encourage former Filipinos to return to the country and invest in businesses here.

Lawyer Arvin Santos, head of the BI Task Force on Dual Citizenship, said the bureau receives an average of 10 to 20 applications per day.

He said the number of applicants grew in October 2005 after the BI came out with new rules easing the requirements for dual citizenship.

Under the revised rules, applicants for dual citizenship are no longer required to submit birth certificates from the National Statistics Office.

Instead, they could now submit copies of certificates of birth from local civil registrars of their birthplaces or other documents, including old Philippine passports, voter’s affidavits and marriage contracts that could prove they were former Filipinos.