It's a good question and likely deserves some extra serious researching.Originally Posted by irishman12
I can only recommend the process that I know works for sure and that means the legal and safe process.
Plenty of folks will tell you how to make a 'short-cut', or how to circumvent the rules or the cheaper way etc etc but if you are the one to get pulled up by immigration then you're likely to be in some kind of trouble.
That often shared route of a Balikbayan 'visa run' is, as far as I know, actually not technically allowed by the rules.
Very strictly speaking the Balikbayan Privilege should only be issued once per year and should only be available to those Philippines citizens (or former citizens) who have been out of the country for 12 months.
Whether you consider the risk of a 'BB visa-run' worth it or not is an individual choice. Personally I'd rather go by the rule book since I don't really know what the consequences might be. Best case scenario would be that the passport gets stamped 21 days visa free and you get sent on your way. But... who really knows what the consequences would actually be.
The immigration officer may dream up all sorts of ideas.
There was once a strong rumour going around that the 12 month out of Philippines BB rule had been removed, but I've not so far been able to confirm that to my own satisfaction.
Now, if anyone here can provide a link to confirm this possibility please do share it with your fellow forumers. It would be the ideal solution for many.
So anyway, based on what we know is legal, when the BB privilege is about to expire, then the options are:-
1. Apply for 13a resident visa
2. Revert to a standard tourist visa and apply for a 59 day extension and then continue on for another 12 months with 59 day extensions.(be advised that ultimately it's the BI decision on length of stay but legally 24 months is the maximum without residence visa)
3. Apply for a Retirement Visa
4. Apply for a Special Investor's Visa
