The government has launched a probe into the reported influx of Chinese college students enrolled in a local private school in Cagayan to determine if their presence poses a security threat.
National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director Jonathan Malaya said they are also looking into whether the presence of such students pose a national security concern or they are simply students aspiring to earn higher education degrees in the country.
“Our intelligence units have been assigned to take a look at the situation there (Cagayan) para alamin kung (to determine if) is this actually a national security threat, or is it just a case of students who want to go to the Philippines to study,” Malaya said in a news forum in Quezon City on Saturday, April 20.
Malaya added that there is a lot of issues that they have to resolve, including their actual number, as it appears to be contradicting reports of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and intelligence reports.
He said the BI reported only about a hundred such students, but intelligence reports said a thousand.
“So, this is something that is currently being investigated now. Even Congress will also do their investigation, but we have already taken a look at it,” Malaya said.