In the article “Going abroad? More documents needed, stricter rules to follow starting Sept. 3,” (Inquirer.net, 8/25/23), the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking was reported to have “revised the departure protocols … ‘to combat the grave menace of human trafficking’ …” emphasizing “that the Revised Guidelines have been 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.”
More focally targeted and therefore hardest hit will be the overseas Filipino workers, and already the groups representing them are crying bloody murder (“Critics slam new travel policy as added burden,” News, 8/26/23).
The guidelines do not tell us what humans are being “trafficked” for, but it is safe to assume they refer to “trafficking” for sex or other illicit purposes around the world. And the newfangled “protocols” are applicable even to passengers who are going abroad for “business/pleasure,” such as tourists. Thus, aside from the usual requirements that tourists must comply with (six-month passport validity, visa if traveling to a country that requires it, boarding pass, round-trip tickets), the new “shield” to supposedly protect them from the “grave menace of human trafficking” now subjects them, at the sole and arbitrary discretion of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials or employees, to further interrogation, euphemistically called as “clarificatory questions,” with respect to their tickets; the complete addresses of the places abroad they intend to stay and for how long; their financial capacity to afford the accommodations; and so forth and so on. If truth be told, all those subjects of further inquiry at the departure points are totally none of the BI’s darned business!
And here’s the most blood-curdling part: Family members traveling abroad may just find themselves in the vortex of all that kerfuffle. At the whim or caprice of BI airport watchers, they could be tagged as “human traffickers” and then subjected to “clarificatory questions,” or interrogation, to determine any probable attempt to “traffic” or sell anyone or some of them abroad. Under such a cloud of suspicion, who’s to stop the interrogators from asking them to produce birth certificates or marriage contracts to prove bona fide relationships by blood or affinity, which must all be duly certified by the Philippine Statistics Authority?
The Constitution clearly provides that “the right to travel (shall not) be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.” The impending “impairment” of that right is not being “provided by law” through lawmakers elected by the people but by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats. And pray tell, what does the Anti-Red Tape Authority have to say about this unprecedented and burdensome “red tape” being wrapped tightly around the Filipinos’ right to travel in spite of the constitutional guarantee?
Evidently, those new rules apply only to Filipino travelers. Nowhere are foreigners mentioned therein. Are foreigners then above any suspicion of being “human (sex or slave) traffickers”? Don’t people in government have anything better to do than to inflict more miseries on the lives of taxpayers who are paying for their fat salaries, all their perks and privileges whenever it hits their fancy to travel abroad—and boy, don’t they always go hassle-free business- or first-class all the way!
Stephen L. Monsanto lexsquare.firm@gmail.com