Visa mess strands 1,000 Muslim pilgrims in Manila

MANILA, Philippines - More than 1,000 Muslim pilgrims bound for Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia are stranded in Metro Manila after the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) failed to secure their visas for the yearly ritual.

Haji Muf Ti Inju, a religious leader from Bongao in Tawi-Tawi, told The STAR that his group of more than 200 pilgrims are staying at a hotel in Paco, Manila.

“We have paid over P100,000 for the pilgrimage and we are supposed to leave last Sunday, but we have no visas,” he said.

NCFM pilgrimage and endowment bureau director Sultan Masideng Salic confirmed that 1,100 pilgrims are currently stranded in Manila while waiting for the Saudi embassy to release visas.

“President Aquino has already appealed to the King of Saudi for an additional 1,000 visas,” he said.

A source told The STAR that the Saudi embassy actually gave the NCMF 12,000 slots for this year’s pilgrimage but the agency submitted only 4,000 visa applications. When the number of applicants exceeded the applications, the NCMF requested another 1,000 visas, but it was too late for the embassy to process the new request, the source said.

The source said the same problem happened under the defunct Office of Muslim Affairs, and “the Saudi embassy has already warned the OMA about the irregular practice.” Salic refused to comment on the past problems, saying he was new at his post.

The NCMF was in the limelight last year when President Aquino tried to replace Secretary Omera Dianalan Lucman, who was among then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s list of alleged midnight appointees. Lucman questioned Aquino’s executive order and was able to get a status quo order from the Supreme Court.

NCMF figures show that the cost of the pilgrimage this year is about $3,129.70 (approximately P135,000), of which $1,679.07 is for housing, food and transportation in Mecca and $1,450 is for a two-way plane ticket.

The commission’s records also show that 2,682 Filipinos are currently in Mecca; 1,292 are awaiting their flights; and 1,182 are still without visas.

NCMF had its chance

The Saudi embassy, in a statement, said it is taking into consideration the plight of the Filipino Muslims who went to Manila from far-flung communities in order to go on the pilgrimage, which is one of the five pillars of Islam.

The embassy said there is an annual meeting in Saudi between the Minister of Hajj and the NCMF, during which the commission requested only 4,000 hajj visas in addition to 100 visas for members of the Philippine Pilgrimage Mission accompanying the pilgrims.

According to the embassy, the NCMF had “all the chances to request any number of hajj visas,” for which a maximum of 12,000 was prescribed for the Philippines. The hajj operations in Saudi strictly regulate the inflow of pilgrims from all over the world, the embassy said, noting that its role is to issue visas on the basis of what has been agreed upon during the meeting.

The embassy said it hopes the NCMF will “eradicate the occurrence of the same problem” by proper coordination with concerned Saudi authorities and by requesting enough visas for Filipino pilgrims.