MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Immigration (BI) yesterday announced it has earned P47.4 million more from visa extensions during the first months of the year compared to the same period last year.
Immigration commissioner Ricardo David Jr. said the agency’s main building in Manila and its extension offices in Makati City and Pasay City alone posted a combined five-month collection of P342.8 million, which is P47.4 million higher than last year’s take of P295.4 million.
This is equivalent to a 16 percent increase from visa extension fees collected from foreign tourists who visited the country during the period of January to May this year.
The applications for extension of stay received from the three BI offices during the said period totaled to 87,986, compared to the 82,930 last year.
David said the increases was an indication that more foreign tourists decided to stay longer in the country or beyond the period of their initial authorized stay.
He said the statistics do not include the visa fees collected by the different BI field and satellite offices outside Metro Manila, which are also authorized to process applications for visa extension, he said.
BI visa section acting chief Julius Cortez said South Koreans topped the list of visa extension applicants, followed by nationals from China, US, Japan, and India.
The BI’s main office processes an average of more than 14,000 applications for stay extension a month or about 700 a day.
The increase in collection was also attributed to the intensified campaign of his office in apprehending holders of fake extensions and other fraudulent immigration stamps.
The BI was cited by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) for substantially cutting red tape.