30,000 ex-Filipinos regained citizenship in 2012

MANILA, Philippines - More than 30,000 former Filipino citizens reacquired their Philippine citizenship and were allowed to have dual nationalities, the Bureau of Immigration announced Thursday.

Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. said in a statement that the bureau approved the petitions of 30,362 individuals under the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003.

Under the said law, natural-born Filipinos who then naturalized in other countries are only required to take the oath of allegiance to the Philippine republic for their original citizenship to be restored, David explained.

He added that 5,564 applications for dual citizenship were received by the Manila office of the bureau, with the rest coming from Philippine consulates all over the world.

David said new dual citizens increased by 40 percent last year from 2011 when the bureau only processed 19,328 applications.

The commissioner also encouraged other natural-born Filipinos to avail of the benefits under the dual citizenship law.

Immigration lawyer Marc Anthony Antonio said that since the law was implemented in 2004, about 150,000 Filipinos worldwide have become dual citizens.

Americans topped the list of the applicants, followed by Britons and Canadians, most of whom filed their petitions at the Philippine consulates in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Honolulu, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, and London.

A fee of P3,000 is required for the immediate processing of petitions for dual citizenship, Antonio said.

This means that the bureau earned more than P90 million from dual citizenship processing fees in 2012 alone.