As I understand the Philippines Naturalization Law, if a person residing here continuously for at least 10 years and meets specific criteria or a person married here for at least five years and meets specific criteria can apply for Philippines citizenship. The caveat is you have to give up your current country citizenship. Has anyone attempted or considered this? For me, although eligible, I am sure I would lose my USA monthly social security so no can do.
Might also be worth noting that every sentence in the requirements starts with a "he"........women might be excluded from gaining Filipino citizenship. You also have to own property or have a "lucrative" job. Since foreigners cannot own land, you retired guys probably don't meet the requirements either.
If the following site is accurate, it states the land ownership must be at least PHP5,000. Sounds funny and useless. I would think if you have land in your spouses name that would qualify. Philippine Citizenship – How to become a Filipino Citizen if Foreigner
I just oppose all organised governments being a child citizen of the universe/planet....0000oppps too much rum, time for bed. C
OR, women may NOT need to meet all these pre-requisites, allowing for more leniency of the intrepretation of the laws governing the "he" pronoun. Just depends on how the Philippine government is strict or narrow in their intrepretation about the he/she pronoun. Citizenship for a foreigner who is a "teacher" (no he/she pronoun there) can be obtained after two years of teaching. Of course, there are other, certain pre-requisites needing to be checked off prior to teaching for two years so as to be sure your teaching time counts towards this accelerated citizenship. However, as I understand this accelerated "teacher to citizen" deal, no marriage is required if a foreign "teacher" plans out his/her path towards dual citizenship properly.... Just saying there's usually another way to skin this cat if one digs a little.... ********** Also, for the original poster, see this: How to Apply for Filipino Citizenship | USA Today You are above the age of being a military "asset", so this is not an issue. You are retired, so I imagine you will not be needing a security clearance. You are not required to renounce your US citizenship. You can carry two passports - US and RP. The RP passport may come in handy at some time in the near future - as the RP is an ASEAN member nation. Dual Nationality | Manila, Philippines - Embassy of the United States CONS: There may be two country income tax returns to do - file RP and US returns (not sure what the laws are in RP). The RP and the US have a "tax treaty", so you won't necessarily be "double taxed" on earned income (if you have any). But you still may have to file in two countries. (IF you want to keep OR establish a US address, then it may be to your advantage to maintain/obtain residency status in a State that has NO income tax so as to avoid having to file a State tax return every year (royal PITA)). This is WHY I will probably change my state of residence from Oregon to TEXAS before I depart to RP as I will be keeping a US address, and Texas has no State income tax on any of my retirement incomes- therefor, no annual State return for me! If I am wrong on any of this, I stand corrected. But I do my best to give accurate information. V/R. nwlivewire
Other than land ownership, which is probably a bad idea most of the time, why would anyone want Philippine citizenship?
The law specifically states that the foreigner must own the land.....if the land is in your spouses name then you legally own absolutely nothing. That is impossible today but likely had some merit when the law was first passed; prior to the "Filipino First" law being passed foreigners could own land and businesses. P5000 worth of land might seem laughable today.....but in 1939 that was probably a pretty good chunch of land. Simply put: today, a retired foreigner does not meet the requirements for citizenship.....unless they are well over 100 years old and might still legally own land that was purchased prior to the Filipino First laws. I'm sure someone could find a lawyer that would tell them differently though. Wish in one hand, sh*t in the other. Think about the adultery punishments that still apply today: Women caught cheating face up to 7 years in prison in the Philippines, men caught cheating get absolutely nothing. The naturalization law was written in the same decade as the adultery laws (in the 1930's).....do you really think any preferential treatment was intended to be given to women? The law does specifically mention foreign women.....they actually add one more stipulation for them: on top of all the requirements already mentioned, you must be married to a Filipino. "And" being the keyword there. Sorry, but I don't see any special consideration being given to women in this law.
