00:00The deadline for foreign POGO workers to stay in the Philippines has ended.
00:05Those who are still in the country after the deadline will face deportation.
00:11PTV's Rod Laguzad has news for the country.
00:16December 31 is the last day for foreign POGO workers to leave the country.
00:22The deadline for these workers is no extension.
00:25This is also followed by the first directive of the President to ban the operation of POGO in the country.
00:30According to the Bureau of Immigration, most of the illegal foreigners who work as POGO workers have already left the country.
00:38Since the second week of December, more than 6,000 were expected to leave.
00:45So by this time, only less than half of it is expected to leave in the next few days.
00:52There is no chance of extension for the December 31 deadline.
00:57No more extension.
00:58If the foreign workers of the POGO company pass the December 31 deadline, they will be blacklisted already.
01:06This means that they will not be able to return to the country even if they already have a family here.
01:12That is why the BIA has continuously urged the new police to follow suit.
01:16And if they still want to work in the country, they can still apply for a visa here.
01:22Based on the BIA's data, from 33,000, 26,000 to 28,000 have already downgraded their visas.
01:30While for those who will remain in the Philippines after the deadline, they will be deported.
01:35But for the illegal workers who work to begin with here in the Philippines,
01:40it is automatic for deportation and blacklisting.
01:44They no longer have a voluntary period to leave the country.
01:48They are already for blacklisting because to begin with, they have already violated immigration laws.
01:54While pending cases are pending, a resolution must be waited for before the deportation process.
02:00As a result of this, at the beginning of the new year,
02:03the BIA was able to catch foreign nationals involved in the small operations of POGO in the country.
02:09We're looking into targeting the smaller ones, the breakaway groups that are operating in a smaller scale,
02:16the batches of 10, the small groups of 10, less than 10.
02:21Those are the ones we are seeing now that are following the problems that we are facing.
02:27This might not be as blatant as the ones before and the community might not notice it.
02:35It is a big thing for the public to be able to monitor this and for the local governments to be able to do so.
02:41The BIA is cooperating with other local enforcement agencies to catch them.
02:46The ones that are continuously operating illegally in the country.
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