The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has asked the Inter-Agency Committee on Foreign Students (IACFS), led by the Commission on Higher Education CHED), to include in its meetings issues involving national security concerns on foreign students in the Philippines.

Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said "it is high time that the inter-agency be active in matters of national security by including security assessments as a regular agenda in meetings.”

He requested the CHED to have a high-level meeting among the IACFS members, which includes the BI,  to clarify the role of each agency in permitting foreigners to study in the country.

He said the IACFS is set to convene on Monday, May 13.

He noted that there have been concerns over the number of Chinese nationals studying in Tuguegarao City in Cagayan province. The concerns are now being looked into by the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Citing BI records, Tansingco said a total of 1,516 Chinese nationals had been granted student visas in Cagayan and all of them endorsed by a major Philippine university.

But, he said, the reports stated that as of April 2024, only 485 are currently enrolled with only 96 of them onsite with student visas.

“We have requested the high-level meeting to reiterate our previous requests for immediate joint inspections, and for it to become a regular conduct by the IACFS given new developments in national security concerns,” he said.

He also said the BI has provided data on student distribution to members of the inter-agency committee for mapping to be utilized by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) in their investigations on suspicious activities of foreign nationals.

“We will be supporting security assessments of NBI and NICA by providing the initial data that can be used for investigations,” said the BI chief.

He said that in 2023, a total of 24,189 student visas to various nationalities including to 16,190 Chinese nationals mostly in the National Capital Region.

“The Philippine government has been promoting the country as a regional and global education hub,” he said.  

“In fact, there are national campaigns that helped greatly boost the number of foreign students in the country,” he also said. 

He also said that Chinese nationals comprise the bulk of foreign students in most countries. In the United States, there are 289,526 Chinese nationals who were given student visas while, in Malaysia and Thailand, around 130,000  and 20,000 student visas, respectively, were issued in 2022.