Obtaining Philippine citizenship may make sense if you live there. You can enter and leave the country without a visa since local law grants you the same rights as other natural-born Filipinos. Foreigners can’t buy land, but you can.

But what if you don’t want to give up your British nationality to become Filipino?

This can be complex. Dual citizenship for non-natives is illegal in the Philippines. This means that most Filipino nationals must renounce their original citizenship. See: http://www.immigration.gov.ph/faqs/citizenship. If you’re Filipino and acquire a second citizenship, it’s different. If so, Philippine law may enable dual citizenship.

Dual citizenship is complicated; consult an expert before making any decisions. Here’s a primer on Philippine dual citizenship legislation.

This depends on whether or not you were born in the Philippines or somewhere else. Before they can be considered Filipino, foreigners who want to become Filipino must give up their original citizenship. So, a foreigner can’t be a citizen of both their own country and the Philippines.

But if you were born in the Philippines or if your parents were born in the Philippines and you were born somewhere else, you automatically become a citizen of the Philippines.

This can be true even if you have already become a citizen of another country and given up your citizenship. Under a law called R.A.9225, people who were born in the Philippines but became citizens of another country can apply to get their Filipino citizenship back. In practise, this means that you can have more than one citizenship, but only if you were born in the Philippines.

Why doesn’t the Philippines let foreigner have two passports?

People who were not born in the Philippines cannot have dual citizenship there. That’s because Filipino citizens are expected to be completely loyal to their country, which is thought to be incompatible with having two nationalities, at least for foreigners.

If you want to naturalise as a Filipino in the Philippines, you must renounce your other nationality. If you’re devoted to your other nationality, you can’t be loyal to the Philippines.