Stranded Ghanaian teen pleads for student visa

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Stranded at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) for 52 days now, a 19-year-old football Ghanaian football player has appealed to Philippine authorities to allow him to take up a computer course in the country instead, after his application for a student visa in Singapore was finally denied.

With no financial resources to fly back to Ghana and his status as a foreigner in the Philippines in limbo, Ayi Nii Aryee pleaded to the Philippine government "for humanitarian considerations" to allow him to study here, with relatives in Thailand and Bacoor, Cavite assuring him of financial support.

"I am not a criminal. I just want to make something of myself and study," Aryee told The STAR in a phone interview yesterday.

While his brother in Thailand and an uncle in Cavite vowed to support him in his studies, they could not shell out $1,800 immediately to enable him to fly back to Ghana as the Bureau of Immigration urged, Aryee said.

An orphan, Aryee said the football season in Ghana has started, thus the football clubs there cannot accept him until the season is finished in 18 months.

"My sole source of livelihood there is football," he said.

Aryee’s ordeal started when the Sporting Afrique Football Club in Singapore invited him to participate in its three-week trial. The club is an affiliate of the Football Association of Singapore.

He decided to apply for a Singaporean student visa and paid tuition of Singaporean $3,800 for a computer course at the Informatics Computer School. The tuition was non-refundable.

While waiting for the approval of his student visa, Aryee decided to fly to the Philippines as a tourist last July 3 to visit his uncle, Wisdom Tobi Tanko, who is married to a Filipina and lives in Bacoor, Cavite. He took a Tiger Airways flight and landed at Clark Field.

Aryee said Tanko, who has been in the country for 15 years now, has expressed willingness to take him under his custody.

On July 12, he departed also via Tiger Airways from Clark to Singapore where he was, however, denied entry because his student visa, it turned out, was disapproved.

He was told to board the same flight back to Clark Field from where he subsequently sent an appeal to the Singaporean government for reconsideration of his application for a student visa.

Recently, however, he received word that Singaporean authorities had finally denied his appeal.

But assistant regional director Imelda de los Santos of the Department of Foreign Affairs based here said an application for a student visa should be filed and approved before an applicant is allowed entry into the country.

"The applicant should wait for the approval of his student visa before he can be allowed to come in as a student," she said.

De los Santos, however, advised him to seek help from the nearest consulate of Ghana, which is in Singapore. Ghana does not have a consulate in the Philippines.