Airport idiocy

These Immigration officers are really bent on making our lives hell.

Leave aside the fact that our airports are the world’s worst, with interminable delays, decaying infrastructure, and deplorable facilities. Just when you thought we had already reached rock-bottom, our government discovers new depths; the proposed “new” rules for departing passengers. The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking just released “guidelines” for Filipinos traveling abroad. Guess what? The agency has just made our lives even more miserable.

In its purported bid to stop human trafficking, the council will waylay passengers at the airport, ready to grant or refuse them their constitutional right to travel. Of course, it preempts this accusation by announcing the guidelines were “formulated not to encroach upon the fundamental right to travel, but to serve as a protective bulwark shielding our fellow citizens from the dire perils of human trafficking”.

It doesn’t matter if the intent of your guidelines wasn’t to violate a Constitutional right --if those violate constitutional rights, then it’s the same banana. And who gave this council the power to deprive or grant citizens their right to travel, anyway?

Just this week, I flew out from NAIA, where it took more than an hour to get through security, with the entire area between Immigration and the X-rays full of irate passengers. The Immigration agent I spoke to asked me all sorts of questions, including why I was leaving, where I was staying, and my profession (I had already answered most of these questions in the etravel website, which should have been accessible to him, but he had to waste my time, his time, and that of everybody behind me).

He asked for a copy of my hotel booking and plane ticket. He asked if I was an Overseas Filipino Worker. All these he did before the revised guidelines even takes effect on September 3. Imagine what kind of inquisition I would have faced had he the guidelines to give him even more power to abuse.

What, exactly, do those guidelines have in store for us? If we are unable to “adequately explain” the purpose of travel, then the immigration officer is empowered to ask for even more documents --none of which we normally bring, much less as a travel kit when we meander across the globe.

We already heard those horror stories of Immigration agents asking for diplomas, yearbooks, and birth certificates. A young artist I know had his own horrible experience, when he traveled to Bangkok for a residency in a prestigious gallery. It was a wonderful opportunity, and he was looking forward to wowing the Thai art market. But at NAIA, the agent required him to produce notarized contracts and guarantees of support. Of course he didn’t have these documents with him. He was unceremoniously off-loaded, and he forfeited his plane ticket. Great contribution to the Filipino art movement, mister agent!

The non-definitive list in the revised guidelines includes proof of financial capacity or source of income, proof of accommodation, or proof of employment. A long list of other requirements follows for different categories, including affidavits of support.

Proof of financial capacity? So tell me. As prudent travelers, do we now lug along our income tax returns? Land titles? Bank statements? How much money do we have to have in our accounts? Will a million as current balance be enough? Do we really need to prove we are rich before we are allowed to leave?

What does this requirement do to fellow citizens of less modest means? Does their being poor disable them from enjoying the ability to travel? This is ugly discrimination, by any which way we look at it.

Proof of employment? If I’m a minimum wage earner, and I get a certificate of employment from my janitorial agency, will that satisfy the Immigration agent? Won’t he still think I’m bound to become a janitor in a European country paying higher wages, anyway? Perhaps, I am a nurse being paid a pittance. Or even a doctor who can’t stand our hospital system. The requirement is bull.

Enough is enough. Time for the idiocy to end.