Bohol House Representative Alexie B. Tutor, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Health and Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs made an appeal to the Department of Tourism and Department of Foreign Affairs to intercede with the Department of Justice and Bureau of Immigration on behalf of foreign passport holders with Filipino blood, foreign tourists, foreign investors, and other foreign nationals who have been unable to return to their homelands because of the coronavirus pandemic and community quarantines.

“Though no fault of their own, these foreign nationals have been stranded in our country and their visas have expired. Please do not treat them as overstaying aliens or as criminals just because they could not leave the country,” Tutor said.

She said that some foreign nationals have been badly-hit financially because their travel funds were depleted with valid alien certificates of registration that have already expired because they could not safely venture outdoors.

Tutor asked the DOT and DFA to work with the DOJ and BI on just solutions to the current predicaments of foreign nationals trapped in the country due to the health crisis.