BI to aliens: Pay fees now

The Bureau of Immigration issued yesterday an ultimatum to more than 3,000 foreigners who availed of the alien legalization program in 1995 to pay on or before the end of the year some P300 million in integration fees they still owe the government.

Immigration Commissioner Rufus Rodriguez issued the order directing the aliens to fully settle their integration fees before Dec. 31 or the bureau will have no choice but to cancel their resident status.

Rodriguez warned that any alien who fails to pay the fees before the deadline would be liable for deportation as he would be considered an undocumented alien.

The immigration chief added that whatever fees the alien had already paid shall be forfeited in favor of the government.

The foreigners were among the 16,000 former illegal aliens who applied for amnesty and were granted permanent resident status under the Alien Social Integration Act of 1995.

Under the said act which the bureau implemented from October 1995 to March 1997, aliens who allegedly entered the country before July 30, 1992 were allowed to apply for amnesty provided they pay the integration fee of P250,000 each.

Each applicant was also charged a fee of P50,000 each for his spouse and P25,000 for each of his dependents.

The amnesty, however, gave the alien applicants the option to pay their integration fees either in full upon the filing of their applications or by installments within the period of three years.

Rodriguez said that although most of the amnesty applicants had already paid their fees, records showed that there are still some 3,000 of them who have not fully paid their fees.

The deadline for the final payment of the integration fees was supposed to be last March but the deadline was moved because the bureau had not yet completed reviewing the records of the amnesty applicants.

The review was ordered by Rodriguez in 1999 amid allegations that many of the applicants were not qualified as they purportedly arrived in the Philippines after July 30, 1992.