Having More Fun in the Philippines?

Is it really more fun in the Philippines or is the predatory corporate culture spoiling whatever fun the tourist enjoys?

“It’s More Fun in the Philippines” shouts the slogan in bold letters plastered on billboards, buses, magazines and even on television to attract victims’ errr tourist to come to the Philippines seems to be a good slogan for fun loving tourist.

Fun is good until you learn that the predatory nature of some of the business enterprising, I meant enterprises are more geared towards their predatory orientation than service oriented victimizing rather than catering to tourist. This is where the fun part gets kind of murky or tricky at this point because if the tourists are not exactly careful the predators will be the one having fun on them rather than the tourist having fun.

In order to have fun first time tourist need to feel secure but seeing so many uniformed guards armed with high powered firearms in almost every establishment even in small stores is not exactly reassuring that there is peace and order. Never mind that people needed employment and those tourists are not aware that these prone to abuse guards by the likes of parasol loving drizzle allergic will melt if he gets wet mayor of Makati are paid slave wages thus there are a good number of them guarding almost every nook and corner of the city.

It is bad enough that crossing the streets of the Philippines is like having a death wish or giving you the feeling you are the frog in a computer Ribbit game of crossing the street trying not to get run over but the sidewalks are even worse. Most of the sidewalks are narrow leaving pedestrians with no choice but to walk the streets and with maniacal drivers with no respect for human life especially of others you run the risk of getting run over. Sadly most sidewalks are not exactly pedestrian friendly making it a hazardous trek where you have to always look down in order not to fall in manholes and other holes of different sorts with missing cover because scavengers steal them and sold as scrap metals. If that is the kind of fun that tourism promoters in the country are thinking of then they are missing the point.

Tourist has to walk a lot and commute a lot. Unfortunately commutes can get expensive due to dishonest cab drivers literally taking people for a ride. Going out of the city like Makati to just Sucat, Paranaque can get expensive because there are so many tolls that run a short distance that one feels like they are in a never ending fleecing station after the other. Short commute in a taxi is no better because either the taxi driver is dishonest with rigged meter that seems not to know where they are going even though they have been there all their lives but still “clueless” on directions. Filipinos are known for being directionally challenged that asking for direction will result in more confusion since it is almost impossible to get one accurate direction even from tong collector errr I meant parking fee collector. Yeah, can you believe they have people collecting parking fees instead of parking meters on the street even though we have a taxi driver sitting in his cab which is technically not parking and yet they insist on fleecing you with their parking fees? At least google maps can be accessed in the Philippines, it is a tremendous help in getting you from place to place in a maze like streets of Metro Manila.

Of course some emotional onion skinned card carrying Filipino pride groups will counter that we can’t expect the country to be perfect because they are a developing nation. Sure, but have we ever think or consider that the mess we are in was the result of so many decades old corruption so pervasive that is now been institutionalized?

Widespread institutionalized corruption is a major factor in dumbing down the people into having a skewed mentality resulting in lack of discipline and worst having the same predatory mentality as the corrupt politicians and the bureaucrats down to public clerk workers even seeping in on private enterprises all the way down to their employees.

Traveling can be stressful especially in airports where time is of the essence not wanting to miss your flights and get stranded in the process. It does not help that incompetence really manifest itself at the disorderly system in the Philippine international airport. I never want to fly PAL (Philippine Airlines) when Lucio Tan a former Marcos crony took it over and their bad rap that really discourage me to take their flight. Since this Aquino administration seems to be serious in combating corruption I decided to take a short flight out to Bangkok and see if it has improved since they are part and parcel of the administration's campaign to attract more tourist.

Never again will I fly with PAL!

Despite having business class tickets the PAL counter personnel charged us for excess baggage because the limit she used was for domestic flight. Now how stupid is that, and since when did Bangkok in Thailand ever became domestic much less became a Philippine city that we were treated like a domestic passenger? This even if their website specifically stated the weight limit and guess what was her rationale for charging or should I say victimizing us with excess baggage weight fee when our luggage conform to the stated limit on their website? She says because we used a different airline in flying to Manila that we are like getting penalized for not using PAL. Now what kind of stupid reasoning was that?

Normally when you are going out of the country the tendency is to get rid of the currency since you have no more use for it and changing the depreciated peso outside the country makes you lose more in the rate of exchange. As if to make it even more unpleasant this counter person will not accept US currency forcing one to either use credit card or exchange dollars at the airport where the rate of exchange is not exactly favorable.

Trust is hardest to come by in a society where corruption is rampant and as a rule predators are the ones that has a problem trusting people. Not content with giving us a hard time when holders of business class ticket are accommodated with excellent customer service by other airlines this PAL counter person probably enjoys every minute of agony she subject us, she flexed her muscles by telling us to pay travel tax first before she gives us our boarding pass.

The incompetence at the NAIA never ends.

After getting our boarding pass we were just so glad to get out of that counter and yet the disorderly management of the airport that should serve as the last gateway to showcase the desirable Filipino cultural trait, so outbound tourist leave with a lasting positive impression, only exacerbated the already bad experience they have encountered. A few decades ago lines are non-existent in the Philippines but now that there is a line where people cue to do their business. Now, there seems to be a line obsession that instead of incorporating the terminal fee on the airline ticket all passengers must cue again on another line to pay that pesky terminal fee. A fee that other countries don’t bother collecting when they even have state of the art airports compared to the crappy NAIA ugliest in the world airport. Then you have to go on another line for immigration, now why can’t they have a sign so passengers knew exactly where to go or how about the guards telling people what those lines are so no one gets confused in cueing on the wrong line?

These people at PAL really need to get some more training on customer service or do they even have a clue what it is? I expect good service and more so if I am on business class which any reasonable passenger do but instead of good service PAL chose to be a jerk like predator and separated us on our seats. It’s not like we are a freebie passenger, we are a paying passenger thus we expect the same excellent service we get from other reputable airlines of which PAL seems to be not. Anyway, their predatory manner of treating a victim errr customer just gave me more insights on the Caucasian passenger we were seated with and both of them just like us had the same bad experience and poor service with PAL that they told us they will never return to the Philippines. If they vowed not to return they will of course not recommend the Philippines as a tourist destination and worst may even dissuade people they know not to go to the Philippines. There goes the slogan of “It’s more fun in the Philippines.” How the employees conduct themselves surely reflects the kind of corporate culture they have and it is definitely not service oriented.

No wonder the Philippines is having a hard time meeting the 5M target arrivals for the year 2013 with just 11.+% yearly increase. In comparison Thailand has close to almost 30M arrivals for 2013 and they are even disappointed at not reaching 30M when they are just a few thousand less on their targeted number. English is not widely spoken in Thailand unlike in the Philippines and yet our tourist arrivals are a puny dismal just almost 5M. When I left Thailand I almost never want to leave and now that I am home I am yearning to come back as soon as I can and sadly I can’t say the same about the Philippines.

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A Dinged Dong, Leaking Boobies, Sex, Lies, & Videotape Scandal in the Philippines complete with Sagging Butt

As one drives down the chaotic Edsa Highway that resembles a maze (one of the main thoroughfares in Metro Manila, Philippines) one cannot help but notice the huge posters of competing beauty clinics of Rosario Calayan of Calayan Surgicenter Corp. and Vicki Belo of Belo Medical Group (BMG) flaunting their piece of work in sexually suggestive poses. Handsome men, Beautiful women and even those in between as in gay or should we say reconditioned or perhaps reconfigured ooops no that is not the right word, let us just say beautifully enhanced perfectly molded models so shiny and bright in their almost Caucasian silken complexion so endowed in all the right places.

Gazing at these giant billboards almost gives you the feeling that you are not in the Philippines but in a tropical paradise island somewhere in dreamland where all the inhabitants are perfectly endowed with shapely figure so stunningly beautiful. Then there is this giant poster of a sexy actress/model with a foreign sounding name, the type I see in the bike paths of California’s picturesque landscape rollerblading or simply playing in the sands in their thongs trying to get as much sun to get that lovely tan. Except this actress/model was not exactly fair complexioned in the first place but with the wonders of the beauty clinic made her look like a sexy beach siren for a whopping cost of P500K to whiten her dark complexion according to our friend making a joke about the poster girl. The only problem was that her true colors errrr dark skin was evident as her offspring came out in this world with a dark complexion because the actress/model has dark complexion in the first place. So much for that farcical irony this article is all about what is going on with the beauty/cosmetic surgery clinic in the Philippines? Or better yet what is wrong with cosmetic surgery in the land where corruption is so endemic?

First we heard of the woes of a dinged dong of Filipino-American Louem Martinez who came to the Calayan Surgicenter Corp. for the removal of a cyst. Say what? Cyst removal so how in the name of Garcified backdoor Comelec electoral cheating did his dong got dinged? Heck, this is like a young clueless naive car buyer going to a used car lot sweet talked by hustler salesman into buying a lemon because he was offered whistles and bang like the stereotypical used car transaction to have his cyst removed, together with liposuction thrown in and an offer he can’t refuse...... a penile enlargement. Of course with a deal like that you ought to have a bad feeling that something amiss is going to happen and it did. True enough not only was his cyst not totally removed his prized possession also went bonkers and as if by a stroke of a Madam Auring psychic prediction I asked a while back which I quote:

A patient seeking redress for his deformed pride and glory being counter sued is not pleasant and truly makes it a horrible experience. Top that with a banned device if it is true as claimed by Martinez lawyer and BFAD Director Gutierrez implanted inside your body is not exactly safe and reassuring. Calayan claims that it was Aquamid that she used and just made a mistake in saying Aquagel but the point is these substances are irrelevant if both were not approved by BFAD. Think of what will happen if a woman goes for breast augmentation, or reshaping some snub nosed Filipinos that may end up shaped into a bursting tomato using banned medical devices is just scary..... yikes and you get bullied with a counter lawsuit is like adding insult to injury and what about organ transplant? Oh never mind, lets deal with that some other time....... continue reading.

So now after the sex, lies, and videotape scandal of a Hayden Camera errr Kho the young doctored errr physician lover of antique oooops mother figure lover boy to the reconditioned yikes I meant beauty doctor Vicki Belo’s scandal reports are coming in if accurate on the leaking boobies of Gloria Arroyo no less points to Belo’s direction. This reminds me of a very funny satire written by Manuel Buencamino who wrote that as soon as Gloria woke up after the surgery at the Asian Hospital half dazed was muttering the famous first words :

Yon dagdag? Yon dagdag?

To which I responded with:

Did the doctor not respond with…… Don’t worry Madam President we had Garci assist us in making sure we counted the augmentation the Comelec way………

Anyway, this is really getting worse and it does not help Medical Tourism that the Philippine government is promoting when another botched operation scandal once again mars the fake errr beauty industry. There it is again as Trixie Cruz-Angeles posted a video below she aptly describes as Butt, lies and videotape...

Businesswoman Josefina Norcio who went to Belo Medical Group clinic for butt augmentation, things would have been fine except one butt cheek came out bigger than the other. She went back to have it corrected and another doctor attended to her but now instead of just a sagging butt she found herself in the intensive care of St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) for serious bacteria infection spreading to other parts of her body reported to have been caused by the hydrogel implant. An ordeal where the patient almost died is not exactly one would imagine finding themselves in such a situation over beauty enhancement is just scary.

This one is something to watch one that has similarity to the Louem Martinez dinged dong ordeal wherein the principal conveniently absolves themselves from responsibility because they were not the one who personally operated, inserted or did the procedure. According to Trixie Cruz-Angeles responding to my query the complainant will be running after all those who are responsible:

Though in general we are after the BMG as a corporate person on two grounds:

1. Fraud in misrepresenting the safety of the procedure and of the polyacrilamide hyrdorgel; and
2. Reckless imprudence both in the use of the untested hydrogel and the use of untrained physicians who are neither surgeons nor plastic surgeons.

Let us see how this will turn out, another one of those scandals people who are contemplating on having a procedure done in Manila to do their own due diligence before jumping into the beauty enhancement that may turn out to be life threatening.

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UPDATE: WEG, A Boom or Doom on RP Tourism?

When the newspapers announced the easing of WEG (Waiver of Exclusion Ground) rules quoting concert Guitarist newly appointed Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan, prudence tells us that we cannot just rely on newspaper account to avoid adding to the confusion that may cause some travelers with minors.

On that account POGB sent an email inquiry to the Philippine Bureau of Immigration to clarify some questions on the easing of WEG rules, they have responded which we quote verbatim:

With respect to what constitutes "substantive proof of Philippine ancestry", we propose that it consists of:

1. Government-issued identity documents issued to the minor's Philippine grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, or legal guardian. These documents consist of, but are not limited to, the following: (i) Valid Philippine passport issued by the DFA; (ii) Valid driver's license issued by the LTO; (iii) Valid non-driver's identity document issued by the LTO; (iv) Valid member's identity card issued by the Social Security System and (v) Valid member's identity card issued by the Government Service Insurance System;
2. Certificate of live birth from a Local Civil Registry showing the Philippine Citizenship of the minor's Philippine grandfather, grandmother, father, mother or legal guardian;
3. Record of birth issued by a Philippine Consular post showing the Philippine Citizenship of the minor's Philippine grandfather, grandmother, father, mother or legal guardian;
4. A public instrument issued by competent authorities showing the Philippine Citizenship of the minor's Philippine grandfather, grandmother, father, mother or legal guardian;
5. A notarized document alleging, among others, that the minor is related by consanguinity to a Philippine grandfather, grandmother, father, mother or legal guardian, who is either an elective or appointive official of the Philippine government, its instrumentalities, agencies or subdivisions; or
6. A notarized document alleging, among others, that the minor is related by consanguinity to a Philippine grandfather, grandmother, father, mother or legal guardian.
   

(Please see attached copy of the new WEG rules as embodied in BI Office Memorandum No. MCL-08-006 )

This is a very good development and a testament that it pays to be pro-active. while I have no way of knowing if this is due to the efforts and persistence of Elsa Bayani (see WEG, A Boom or Doom on RP Tourism?) who was responsible for almost single handedly lobbying the Philippine government in waiving the WEG fee, Commissioner Libanan did exactly what she asked. Ask and ye shall receive so goes the saying and that is just the beginning. Imagine if there are more pro-active people acting in unison with like minded persons, who knows the Philippines may soon be a better place to live in.

POGB strongly advise travelers bringing along minors of Filipino lineage to consult with the Philippine Immigration Bureau and exercise their due diligence regarding the WEG rules and guidelines.

Related articles:

• WEG, A Boom or Doom on RP Tourism?
• Blog Review & Philippine Corruption

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Filipinos Overseas Filipinos

Philippine Medical Tourism & the Woes of Louem Martinez

Imagine yourself in a pristine white sand beach enjoying what the tropical paradise has to offer sipping a cocktail relaxing in all serenity…… heaven, pure heaven with no worries in the world away from the rat race unwinding in your own leisure time. Welcome to the wonderful mecca of Philippine Medical Tourism .........

Everything is so cheap where your depreciated dollars go a long way, people catering to your every whims and caprice not a worry in the world. Ideal, isn’t it?

That is exactly what the brochures and internet site entice you, vacationing in the Philippines’ beautiful tropical paradise while at the same time taking a journey towards life-enhancing cosmetic surgery procedures which can restore or enhance your features. A trip so rewarding in terms of gaining inner confidence looking and feeling years younger in your quest for affordable rejuvenation at a significant cost savings that you can only dream of is possible in the tropics.

The growing industry shows a lot of potential that the Philippines have included medical tourism in their government program to get a share of the burgeoning market of neighboring Asian countries.

All is well that ends well in a fairy tall tale, but what happens if somewhere along the line something goes awry and instead of the enhancement you expect from the medical procedure it went south causing undue physical and psychological damage. What will you do? How will you deal with the problem when you are already back home thousands of miles away?

A boon or vain or worse a botched procedure that may not just leave you with a scar or permanent damage to the most delicate part of your body where you dread the most in joining the bandwagon of Philippine Medical Tourism but psychological as well.

That is exactly what happened to Filipino American Louem Martinez also known as Louem Boschuk who underwent a procedure for penile enlargement and ended up in pain and his cherished possession disfigured. Ouch!

At the risk of being the subject of ridicule it took some cajones or should we say his balls are still intact went to a lawyer and filed a P26 million suit against the doctor. Filing a case against the husband and wife popularly known as the “Doctors to the stars” Manuel and Rosario Calayan, registered owners of the Calayan Surgicenter for the botched procedure in 2007. Indeed a mess that Happy Thoughts wished Louem Martinez should have first researched Maxoderm: An alternative for men, than underwent the procedure avoiding the end result of having a "badly deformed, sagged and bumped" prized possession.

Take note, if ever you are contemplating on enhancing your “prized” possession you should check out the Philippine laws and regulation first because they are not exactly the same laws and regulation that you see in the US that protects the patient that holds the medical profession to the highest ethical standards. Also, while there are laws to that effect you have to make sure that the establishment you are dealing with strictly abide and follow said rules and regulations. After all, it is still a nation where corruption is so endemic that some people actually thrived on it and thus skirting the law is a common accepted practice.

It’s a messy legal battle with the Calayans' insisting that the patient signed a liability release form which the patient claimed was shoved to him by the clinics' personnel and no one explained exactly what it means. On the other hand Calayan insist that he explained everything to him and has been doing this procedure for quite some time. Confusing I should say especially when claims and counter claims are opposite what both parties are saying. What is interesting is that the substance used to enhance Martinez pride and glory errr however you want to call it should be enough for one to be ultra cautious if one is contemplating this kind of procedure or any procedure for that matter, to quote:

He and his lawyer Dioscoro Peligro showed reporters a letter from the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) stating aquagel and aquamid are two different products and chemicals.

“I have been told that aquagel is banned, while aquamid needs a permit for its importation and that this has already expired in 2006,” Martinez said.

In the letter, BFAD director Leticia Barbara Gutierrez said both aquagel and aquamid are “medical devices and their registration prior to importation and sale is mandatory.”

“Calayan Surgicenter Corp. is not the licensed importer of the above products,” Gutierrez said.

I know I heard this before that an illegal contract is not enforceable so I just don’t know if this applies in this case. If what the lawyer of Martinez is saying is true then a banned or illegal substance was used to enhance Martinez “pride and glory” that is now deformed so that should really give people the creeps if they are contemplating on similar procedure in the Philippines. Unless one is willing to risk ones deformed "pride and glory" and the hassles of messy lawsuits and counter suits, as shown in this case:

“I did not participate in any of the medical procedures performed on the complainant, nor did I give any opinion or medical advice to the complainant,” she said, adding that Martinez was never her patient.

In her complaint-affidavit filed in April, Rosario Calayan claimed there was no legal basis to hold her liable as she has never met Martinez nor did the patient consult with her.

She also accused the patient of perjury and unjust vexation because of the “malicious filing of the baseless criminal complaint.

Her lawyer Reggie Ukol maintained that such circumstances do not immediately hold her liable for the supposed crime.

“Those circumstance don't mean that there was a conspiracy to commit the crime,” he said in an interview Thursday.

A patient seeking redress for his deformed pride and glory being counter sued is not pleasant and truly makes it a horrible experience. Top that with a banned device if it is true as claimed by Martinez lawyer and BFAD Director Gutierrez implanted inside your body is not exactly safe and reassuring. Calayan claims that it was Aquamid that he used and just made a mistake in saying Aquagel but the point is these substances are irrelevant if both were not approved by BFAD. Think of what will happen if a woman goes for breast augmentation, or reshaping some snub nosed Filipinos that may end up shaped into a bursting tomato using banned medical devices is just scary..... yikes and you get bullied with a counter lawsuit is like adding insult to injury and what about organ transplant? Oh never mind, lets deal with that some other time.......

The problem started when Martinez went to doctor Calayan for the removal of a cyst through Liposuction and the penile enlargement was supposedly an added bonus or part of the package deal. Now what was that all about? Liposuction to remove a cyst? Guess how that turned out? According to the new P14 million complaint of estafa and reckless imprudence resulting in serious physical injury filed by Martinez the operation did not work and the cyst instead spread and grew bigger.

The bottom line is that you get what you paid for and come to think of it the hassles of the court system is not something one enthusiastically wants to get involved with. Dealing with the court system is bad enough and to get entangled in the justice system in the Philippines that is perceived by the public to be corrupt is an experience you don't want to be in. Then the distance which is thousands of miles away does not help either and the time, energy and resources you spend in going back and forth in a court system that is known for its turtle paced disposition is a very expensive proposition. What about the unrealized income that you will lose for the time you have to spend flying back and forth to attend your hearings? Is it worth it?

Luckily or perhaps unluckily whichever way you want to look at it this case was noticed by the press thus hopefully will send a message that people are watching attentively on how this will unfold. But that alone is not a guarantee that the aggrieved party will get justice so what happens if the case is not a celebrated case, what are the chances of getting a decision in favor of the aggrieved party? How many more botched procedures are out there that the victims are not reporting for fear of ridicule and the scandalous embarrassment one has to go through? Can't get enough of this, here go see the news video on this botched procedure.

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Bayan Ko

The Philippines in all its beauty and splendor painstakingly assembled by pnaymommy3, posted at youtube is a timely reminder for us not to allow the trapos (traditional politicians) to spoil, ruin, and pillage our nation with their wicked lust for power and mismanagement. To those who can't make it physically to the inter-faith rally and other street protest against the corrupt Arroyo regime we offer you Bayan Ko or you can head to Marvin Bionat's Philippine Update to light a virtual candle.

A video showcasing the beauty of the remarkable places & people of the Philippines set to the music of Freddie Aguilar's "Bayan Ko", (my country) which sometimes gets mistaken as the Philippines National Anthem because of its popularity.

Here is the translation to the lyrics of this moving song.

"Bayan Ko (My Country)"

My country the Philippines
Land of gold and flowers
With love in her palms
She offers beauty and virtue.
And of her modesty and beauty
The foreigner was attracted
O, my country, you were enslaved
Mired in hardship.

Even birds that are free to fly
Cage them and they cry,
Much more a beautiful country
Shall long to be free.
Philippines my beloved,
Cradle of my tears and poverty
I'll aspire,
To see you truly free.

Hope you enjoy the video as much as pnaymommy3 did in making it.

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WEG, A Boom or Doom on RP Tourism?

WEG or Waiver of Exclusion Ground is that nasty section in the Philippine Immigration Act purportedly aimed at minors under the age of 15 traveling to the Philippines that are at “risk of being a charge of the state”. Now who is the genius who concocted such nasty requirement really needs to see a shrink or just plain dumb to foresee that this Act is more likely to corrupt what is an already perceived corrupt government immigration office.

Imagine yourself embarking on a grand vacation and since your relative just don’t have the luxury of taking off from work and like any Filipino family with strong family ties you accompanied your immediate relatives’ minor children to visit the homeland.

As soon as you land in Manila or Cebu the nightmare begins and you are now at wits end with the minor you accompanied for this grand vacation that turns out into a vacation in hell. Here you are being confronted by Philippine immigration officer telling you that the minor you accompanied will be detained. Say Whaaaat now, this is exactly what happened to Gabrielle Bayani then a 4 year old girl threatened with detention by Philippine Immigration Officer.

Elsa Bayani and others in the same situation has to cough up a total of P3,200.00 for varied fees and the unbelievable maze of documentations, affidavits and red tape makes getting a high secuity clearance to enter Fort knox pale in comparison in accordance with the so called WEG “requirements”. Here is how Federico Pascual described it in his column:

MIXED REACTIONS: The tales told by readers of how their minor children or grandchildren bearing foreign passports were given shabby treatment at the airport triggered sympathetic vibration in others who had gone through the same ordeal.

To recall, two readers, Elsa Bayani and Edessa Ramos (POSTSCRIPT, June 20 & 22, 2004), wrote of how the minors arriving with them were held at the airport where an obscure immigration rule was sprung on them and made to pay fees “at the discretion of the immigration commissioner.”

Well we do expect such outcome do we? Unfortunately people seem to miss the point on this WEG issue, if indeed this was intended to protect the minors from being a charge of the state what’s up with the fee? What is this fee for anyway? Is it to assign a 24 hour security detail to “protect” the minor? What’s up with the commissioner having a discretionary power on who should be detained or not? Is this not a clear opportunity for “hulidap” (robbery hold up committed by rouge police personnel) or a temptation for immigration officers to use this “discretion” to bleed Balikbayan and non Philippine citizen tourist alike of hard earned depreciating dollars?

Federico Pascual in his column is an exercise in contradiction of sorts and failed to grasp the real issue being raised by the harassed passengers when he described what Frank R. Cimafranca of the Philippine consulate general in Geneva as enlightening item, to quote:

“I would like to believe that the incidents complained about arose because of miscommunication or, perhaps, the failure of some of our immigration officers to properly explain the law and regulations. And ‘proper explanation' entails a lot of patience and courtesy.

“In our culture we do not like to get caught or entangled in some legalistic bind. We resent procedures that are too formal and impersonal. As Filipinos, we need to communicate with one another in a more informal and personal way, including ‘explaining what the law and regulations are all about.'”

Apparently Cimafranca is missing the point and only shows their disrespectful attitude towards balikbayans and tourist. Of course there will be an “incident” because of the anomalous requirements of the “law” and why such law even exist. To put this in the simplest of terms, if you are in a roomful of thieves will you leave your wads of cash on the table? What precisely are they trying to accomplish with this WEG anyway? I dare say nothing except a perfect opportunity or temptation for corruption plain and simple due to the fact that upon payment of the fees, detention still falls under the discretion of the immigration commissioner.

This issue has been relentlessly pursued with passion by Elsa Bayani since 2004 who wants to see the fee in this this law scrapped or reduced. Despite her sheer determination we have not seen any resolution to this perfect opportunity for corruption. It is only through your help by pressuring your representatives and senators in the Philippines to scrap this anomalous fee requirement of WEG to pressure the lawmakers to do something constructive for the sake of tourism. Again, to put this in the simplest of terms, you cannot expect your wads of cash you left on the table out in the open hoping no one will touch it in a roomful of thieves? This is precisely what this WEG has accomplished, a temptation and opportunity for corruption due to the fact upon payment of the fees, detention falls under the discretion of the immigration commissioner.

Here is a quote on Elsa Bayani's email posted at Tapatt of Antonio Abaya:

In my research regarding this issue of minors entering the Philippines, I have documented inconsistencies in the implementation of this law despite the original provisions of RA 6768, amended by RA 9174, and the implementation rules from the Aquino to the Estrada administrations. These inconsistencies are PERFECT OPPORTUNITIES FOR CORRUPTION and have caused many returning “balikbayans” to harbor bad images abroad about the Philippine government which we now consider VERY CORRUPT IN THESE AND OTHER INSTANCES. If this is a law in effect or a rule regarding the entry of ‘balikbayans’ covered by such law or rules, we need clarification in order to know what to expect and to decide whether, under such unpleasant surprises upon arrival at the airports, we still want to visit the Philippines by condoning such CORRUPT PRACTICES.

If you want to take an active role and participate in this issue you can join Elsa Bayani at Initiative 2010. To learn more on WEG click HERE for the details of Elsa Bayani and Gabrielle's harrowing experience click HERE. If you don't think this issue is not that important then think again..... its the prevailing attitude and disrespect to Overseas Filipinos that is the reason why this WEG even exist.

************************************************

See: UPDATE: WEG, A Boom or Doom on RP Tourism?

Blog Review: Pedestrian Observer

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