For reelected Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez the proposed participation of the Philippines in the planned ASEAN unified visa system gets a hard pass.
Why? It could pave the way for the entry of more Chinese spies in the country, Rodriguez claimed.
In a statement Wednesday, May 21, the lawyed-solon urged President Marcos to direct Secretary Christina Frasco of the Department of Tourism (DOT) to withdraw her agency’s support for the plan.
The envisioned Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) visa system is similar to the Schengen visa in Europe.
Rodriguez said the country’s involvement in the system, if it materializes, “will pose greater risk to our national security and interest, our people and our society than the present set-up".
“This will allow Chinese tourists who are actually spies to get ASEAN visas in Chinese client states like Cambodia and Laos, or even the liberal visa grant by Thailand to Chinese citizens, to come to the Philippines and they will automatically be admitted under the ASEAN visa scheme. This will be more dangerous to our national security than our present visa issuance process,” he explained.
As it is, Rodriguez said Chinese “Trojan horses” are able to enter the country as tourists, students and businessmen.
“Many of them are actually spies of Beijing, several of whom have been caught redhanded by the authorities near military installations and sensitive government offices, including the Commission on Elections,” said the former deputy speaker.
“Others are scammers, illegal gambling operators, illegal POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators), human traffickers, drug smugglers, and criminally-minded nationals of China. They are a plague in our society. We cannot have more of them here through a system that facilitates their easy entry in our country,” he added.
Rodriguez urged Frasco and other tourism officials and tourist industry stakeholders to think of national security and interest in endorsing the country’s participating in such tourism-related schemes like the ASEAN unified visa system.
“We are all for boosting our tourism sector and our economy by having more tourist arrivals, but, given our experience and our raging dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea (WPS), we don’t want to just accept Chinese tourists, but they should undergo rigorous evaluation by our Embassy and consulates in China,” he said.
Frasco endorsed the ASEAN unified visa plan at a forum in Bangkok, Thailand last May 15. She said she was “very hopeful” the proposal would be tackled when the Philippines hosts the ASEAN Summit next year.