The Philippine government, through the Bureau of Immigration (BI), prevented the entry of 2,700 questionable foreigners who failed to justify their travel to the country.
In its report, the BI said as part of its six month campaign from January to June 2017 it was able to prevent "undesirable aliens" from getting into the country, though no specifics were given.
Bureau of Immigraiton Commissioner Jaime Morente told Philippine journalists that 2,421 undesirable foreigners were barred when they attempted to enter the Ninoy Aquino International Airport while 296 were barred from entering provincial airports in Cebu, Davao, Clark, Iloilo, Kalibo, Laoag and Puerto Princesa.
The BI also reported that the number of foreigners who were denied from entering the Philippine ports has a 39 percent increase from last year's number of 1,948 for the same period.
Morente said that their campaign to prevent undesirable foreigners will continue so that they can screen arriving foreigners and validate that they are properly documented visitors.
The Philippines earlier have recorded incidents of fugitives of foreign lands making the Philippines their hiding place. Moreover, some foreign terrorists are also suspected of organizing terror cells in Mindanao.
Thus, the Philippine government has been carefully scrutinizing foreigners visiting the Philippines to prevent undesirable foreigners causing problems to local Filipinos.
The Philippines has a booming tourism industry and more foreigners continue to flock beach resorts. With the strengthening of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China, the country is expecting to have 1 million Chinese tourists visiting the Philippines next year.
Americans, Chinese and South Koreans still top the list of frequent tourists to the Philippines.
