Several travelers were departing back to the Philippines at the San Francisco International Airport the week after Easter. It was also during that week when the rumor about the “no U.S. visa policy” was spreading like wildfire among many Filipinos.
“The good news is all over the social media, the internet,” according to an acquaintance I met at the airport. I asked what the good news was and she said that Filipinos are no longer required to get visas to enter the United States. I told her that she had her information wrong. I saw her face turned red in disappointment. I had remembered reading a posting in Facebook that morning about what she was referring to. When I read it, I knew right away that it was a joke. While driving to work I was thinking about what my acquaintance was referring to as ‘good news’. It should not have been taken seriously. Surprisingly, however, my phone kept ringing and I kept on receiving messages asking if it was true? I responded by clarifying that the ‘good news’ was merely a satire article from a blog site called the Adobo Chronicles.
Each person seeking verification had varying responses. Some just took it lightly and laughed after finding out it was a joke. Others were outraged on why wrong information was released to the public. The intention of the author of the news satire may have been to simply ridicule the difficulty of obtaining U.S. visas for Filipinos. But many recipients of the “no U.S. visa policy” news felt offended. Some believed that it was cruel on the part of the author and persons spreading the news satire to release misleading information. Why is it that the ‘no U.S. visa policy’ news disappointed and offended many Filipinos after learning that it was only a joke?
Visa Waiver Program
Two U.S. agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State may designate certain countries as visa exempt when traveling as visitors to the United States. Most of those designated are European countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany among others. But in Asia, very few are considered as visa exempt countries. The list of Asian countries in the visa waiver program includes Brunei, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. The criterion for being designated under the visa waiver program is the low refusal rate in nonimmigrant visitor visa applications. The percentage of refusal should be less than 2.5% of the total visitors granted and denied.
The Philippines is not designated as a country under the visa waiver program for obvious reasons. The rate of refusal of visitor visa applications is relatively high. Not only is the rate of refusal high, the Philippines is also considered a high “fraud” post. Every applicant for the visitor visa at the U.S. Embassy in Manila is a suspected ‘TNT” (tago ng tago) or an intending immigrant unless the applicant can prove otherwise. The number of overstaying nonimmigrant visa holders who are Filipino nationals is also high; hence, the consular officers at the U.S. Embassy issue less visas and decline more applications. For these reasons, it is legally impossible to exempt the Filipinos from the U.S. visa requirement as a condition for entering the United States as a visitor.
The Cruel Joke
No matter how good the intention of the blog writer was to satire the visa requirements, many Filipinos were affected by it. While it is true that for some Filipinos travelling to the US is only a vacation; for many other Filipinos, however, travel to the US is for purposes of visiting family members with whom they have been separated for a long time.
The U.S. immigration system now is broken and needs to be reformed. Families are separated for many years because of the lengthy process. In certain preference categories, it may take up to 20 years for an adult child to reunite with a parent in the United States. Due to the unreasonably long wait in immigrant visa availability, many would like the chance to temporarily visit their relatives while waiting for their immigrant visas. This dream is shuttered every time they are denied the visitors’ visa even if they do have a genuine desire to simply visit and return to the Philippines. Thus, when the news satire about the “no visa policy” was spreading in the social media, many became excited. It was the news that they wanted to hear. And since it turned out to be fake news, they became indignant and considered this a very cruel joke.
Some of the indignant recipients of the news satire were those who have been previously denied visitors’ visas. When they heard of the news satire, the responses or comments from their posting of this news satire was to voice out their happiness in having a chance to finally see their family members after so many years. Others were excited in the possibility of visiting places in the United States such as Disneyland, Universal Studios and New York. To later find out that the information was merely a news satire, frustrated their dreams again.
We all hunger for good news. Oftentimes, however, we become a victim to our own desires in wanting to hear news that we want.
(Atty. Lourdes Santos Tancinco may be reached at law@tancinco.com or at 027211963 or visit her website at tancinco.weareph.com/old)
