Be nice, or go back to where you came from.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) revealed that 18 unruly foreign nationals were barred from entering the country last year amid the pandemic.
BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said they were sent back to their port of origins after being rude to Immigration officers at the airports.
“While immigration officers are instructed to exercise maximum tolerance, some foreign nationals arrived at airport terminals drunk, rowdy, and unruly when they present themselves for inspection,” said Morente.
The BI chief said some of the foreign visitors even made derogatory statements about Filipinos, and/or the Philippines.
Morente said these discourteous aliens were blacklisted and banned from re-entering the country.
Such policy is based on a 2001 memorandum order which instructs immigration personnel to exclude disrespectful foreign passengers and place them on the immigration blacklist.
Records show that in 2019, a total of 180 aliens were denied entry for being rude and disrespectful. The figure was 133 in 2018.
The BI's port operations division said Chinese nationals topped the list of excluded aliens.
In 2020, the BI excluded a total of 3,044 foreign nationals for various immigration violations.