By Xinhua,
Manila : Nearly 5,000 visas were unofficially issued to tourists from India who came to the Philippines between 2005 and June of 2007, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration said on Friday.
Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan has ordered the creation of a committee to probe how the 4,843 Indian nationals entered the country with visas not officially issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippine TV network ABS-CBN reported.
Libanan said the DFA issued 39,495 tourist visas to Indian nationals in the period under review.
Records show that 4,843 more Indian tourists entered the country in the same period.
“This means that these almost five thousand Indians got their visas from questionable sources,” said the immigration chief, noting that the loss of millions of pesos in revenues to the national government.
Tourists who enter the country pay about 2,500 pesos (57 U.S. dollars) for visa application.
“The government lost over 10 million pesos (227,800 dollars) in fees from tourist visas from India alone,” he said.
In ordering the investigation, Libanan pointed out the need to know how this discrepancy happened and to pinpoint responsibilities “for at stake here is not only uncollected fees by the Department of Foreign Affairs but the integrity of our system in issuing visas to foreigners.”
“With knowing how the system worked, we can go down to knowing who made money from this illegal process and ruined the integrity of our visa,” he said.