⌛ Immigration fees and penalties.

A guy from Bacolod planned a trip to California and arrived Manila airport 3 days ago. That was the end of his trip. Immigration in Manila asked him to pay for overstay of visa for 28 months plus a penalty of Pesos1,010/month.

His total bill adds up to P49,000 in unpaid fees plus P28,280 in penalties. A total of P78,280....appr. $1800. The guy was broke.... and now detained in Manila.
Sad to hear this story but that is the way it goes when we don't take care of our obligations. Always pay up and stay out of trouble. To keep your visa up to par only cost appr. $36/month... to not pay puts you in trouble sooner or later.

For guys applying for SRRV visa your Immigration Visa Extention must be paid up before they will accept your application. They check your passport and all the visa extention stamps must be there up to date!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Cheers!

Ron.

 

Ron, good advice for some, thanks for posting the heads up. PI offers both retirement visa and permanent visa options for people who may want to avoid the nightmare the guy from Bacolad is experiencing.

 

PI offers for tourists 2 month extensions up to 24 month, which is more than any country I ever traveled to. If a tourist has no clue about the regulation of a country he is in, he deserves it not better. I actually think the guy got pretty cheap away for staying 28 month illegally in a country. There are quite some other Asian and development countries where you get arrested first before they think what to do about your illegal status.

As much as we all rant about the legal system here, that case shows that not all is bad compared to neighboring countries.

 

We better advice the guy next time he wants to opt for an overstay to choose a western european country. As far as I know he will not get in prison no matter how long he illegally will have stayed.

 

... yeah... best case scenario, he can also bring his family illegal and stay full-board and all expenses paid ...

 

I deliberately excluded that info in my posting. We have already more than enough financial probs with those PIGS countries making the euro weaker and weaker. So any illegal allien more will only make it worse and worse.

 

.. hey they still can open a restaurant, Doner Kebab - joint or import-export-shop to wash some money if the free accommodation does not work out as planned...

 

Immigration laws here for tourist status are clear, and not difficult to follow the rules. Would any intelligent person expect to walk through the airport in that situation and expect to even make the plane? Not to mention being broke. It's situations like this, that make it look bad for all us foreigners.
Ron

 

When we visited Dumaguete for 10 days we met one person at a place called Happy Freds bragging about his time in Dumaguete and never had a problem with BI. Not paid for 3 years. Another place we met 2 aussies and they had both over stayed 18 months.... Nice guys in Dumaguete too, but stupid. Don't they have an BI Alien Control Officer in Dumaguete looking for those illegal guys who makes honest x-pats look bad. Lots of money for BI to bring in if they start working.

Cheers!
Ron

 

He didn't get away, he is detained and awaiting a hearing. As far as I understand the law of the land, with no money he will eventually be deported.

Cheers!
Ron