A TR Emeritus (TRE) reader has sent in this information [Link]. Apparently, under the laws of the Philippines, a Philippine citizen who has given up his citizenship to become a citizen of another country can easily re-acquire or claim back his Philippine citizenship.
This law was in fact enacted in the Philippines in 2003 called the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003. It declares that natural-born citizens of the Philippines who become citizens of another country shall be deemed not to have lost their Philippine citizenship and can retain/re-acquire it back. However, it only applies to natural-born citizens of the Philippines
And the best part of this Act is that it does not require the person to renounce his or her other foreign citizenship after he or she has re-acquired the Philippine citizenship.
So, in other words, if, say, a Filipino couples want to buy our HDB BTO flat with market subsidy, they can do this. They can first apply to become Singapore citizens. To do that, they need to go to the Philippine embassy to renounce their Philippine citizenship/passports. They get a letter from the Philippine embassy to confirm this. Then they submit the letter to Singapore’s ICA for their application to become Singapore citizens.
And after they have obtained Singapore citizenship and bought their BTO flat, they can easily re-acquire back their Philippine citizenship anytime they want, even without surrendering their Singapore citizenship since there is no requirement on the Philippines’ side. The other possible scenario is after working for 10 years, the whole family can sell off their BTO flat with good profits and together with their S$ savings, they can all retire comfortably back to the Philippines as Philippine citizens. Full story
