THE PHILIPPINE Retirement Authority (PRA) was established in 1985. Its purpose is to attract foreign nationals over the age of 35 by offering permanent residency status in return for an investment of $50,000 for those aged 35 to 50 and $20,000 for those over 50. Until fairly recently, the required investment was $75,000 and $50,000 respectively. There is also an annual visitorial fee of 0.5 percent of the investment per annum.
Over the past 35 years, the number of retirees and their dependents has risen slowly but steadily to a total of approximately 70,000. Of this number there are about 27,000 Chinese nationals of whom 11,000 are principal retirees and a further 16,000 are spouses and dependents.
The spread of nationalities is quite wide. In addition to the Chinese, there are Koreans 14,000; Indian 6,000; Taiwanese 5,000; Japanese 4,000; followed by Americans, Hong Kongers, British, Germans, and Australians.
Last week, the PRA, an attached agency of the Department of Tourism (DOT), attended a Senate budget review meeting. Some Senators expressed concern about the scheme. In particular, the early age of ‘retirement’, 35, and the large number of Chinese caused Sen Nancy Binay to worry whether they are competing for local jobs or posing risks to national security. These concerns should be addressed.
The PRA general manager Bienvenido Chy has since explained that applicants to the PRA scheme have to produce a police clearance from their country of origin. The PRA also double checks the applications with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
DOT secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat is meeting with the PRA’s Board of Trustees to re-assess the policy of allowing retirees at the age of 35.
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The role of the PRA is, via the investment requirement, to develop and promote the Philippines as a retirement haven as a means of accelerating the social and economic development of the country.
Nevertheless the total investment that the scheme attracts is significant. If, as a result of the program, there are 70,000 permanent ‘tourists’, then this surely is good for our economy. Simple math tells us that 70,000 spending 365 days a year here is equivalent to 7 million staying for an average of 3.65 days.
Tourism is vital for our economy and if this is underpinned by DOT attracting a large number of permanent residents, then I am all for it.
The concerns raised by senators should be addressed rigorously, but I believe the vast majority of those who have invested in the PRA scheme have genuine motives. If, as Sen. Joel Villanueva suggests, there could be PRA members who are undesirably working in the Philippine Offshare Gaming Operators (POGO), then these should be weeded out./PN
