By Macon Ramos Araneta
Due to the issuance of Philippine passports to foreign nationals, the approval of the proposed PHP24-billion budget for 2024 of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) may be recalled, said Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa on November 12.
In an interview over Super Radyo dzBB, Dela Rosa reiterated that the granting of Philippine passports to foreigners may likely affect national security.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III also raised the same concern over the country’s national security concern with giving of Philippine passport to persons who are not Filipinos.
“For all we know, when we wake up one day, our neighbors may already have Philippine passports,” Dela Rosa said.
During the hearing last November 8, DFA officials were quizzed on releasing Philippine passport to foreign national
The DFA officials said they merely relied on the birth certificates from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The birth certificates and the passports were all genuine.
Pimentel said “We can say it’s a national security concern. This is even more important than the national budget for one year so that the PSA should take back the Philippine passports from the foreign holders. We are asking PSA to return to the Senate since their budget has been approved two days ago,” said Pimentel.
The Senate last November 9 approved to recall the plenary approval of the PSA budget for 2024 due to the uncovered irregularity.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri initially aired reservations on recalling the PSA budget, saying it might set a bad precedent in the Senate’s budget deliberations but the motion to recall by Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva was approved without objection.
Villanueva also said he will ask the Senate Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring to issue the necessary notice and inform the body of the schedule of the PSA budget discussion.
Also reacting on the earlier pronouncement by Zubiri that the recall will set a bad precent, Pimentel noted “it will become a bad precedent if we saw the abuse, and yet, it was approved.”
He said the PSA deserves a more thorough interpellations on its budget and performance.
Based on the statistics, he said it appears there’s proliferation of fake Philippine passports.
He said a number of recipients of Philippine passports are not Filipinos although the holders are carrying genuine passports.
Meanwhile, Zubiri ordered the Senate Blue Ribbon committee or the Committee on Public Order to investigate the matter.
He also disclosed information from the NBI which indicated that a civil registry of a town in CARAGA (Region XIII, comprising Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur) has been issuing birth certificates to Chinese nationals who do not speak English or any Filipino language.
As soon as the budget is approved, they will start the investigation.
Dela Rosa warned that Philippine passports may be proliferating among Chinese.
“And before we know it, we might already be surrounded by operatives from maybe the People’s Liberation Army or whoever these people are,” he said.
