More Pinoys regaining Filipino citizenship

Some 43,000 former Filipino citizens have reacquired their Filipino citizenship in the past three years under the dual citizenship law.

The Bureau of Immigration revealed 28,400 applications for dual citizenship have been approved in various Philippine consulates abroad while some 14,479 were processed at the BI main office in Manila.

Former Filipinos who became American citizens topped the list of applicants whose dual citizenship were approved. Many Filipino-Canadians and Filipino-Australians have also reacquired Filipino citizenship.

"As a result, these former Pinoys are again enjoying their rights and privileges as citizens of the Philippines," the BI said.

It was in 2003 when Congress passed the Dual Citizenship law declaring that former natural-born Filipinos who later became naturalized citizens of other countries have not lost their Philippine citizenship.

The law encourages former Filipinos who are now living abroad to return to the land of their birth and buy property or invest in business here. The BI technical staff on dual citizenship, said they receive an average of 15 applications for dual citizenship a day.

Under the revised rules, applicants for dual citizenship are no longer obliged to submit birth certificates from the National Statistics Office (NSO) to prove that they were former natural-born Filipinos.

Instead, an applicant may submit his birth certificates from the local civil registrars of his birth place and other documents, such as his old Philippine passport, voter's affidavit, and marriage contract, proving that he is a former natural-born Filipino.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) regularly transmits to the BI the list and records of approved dual citizenship applicants so that the latter may secure their identification certificates and leave their fingerprint files with the bureau once they visit the Philippines.