Van Beersum’s deportation reminiscent of martial law

This refers to Inquirer’s news reports about the deportation of Dutch activist Thomas van Beersum (“Dutch activist in Sona protest deported,” News, 8/8/13; “Lawyers hit Dutch activist’s ouster,” News, 8/9/13). The Bureau of Immigration (BI) deported Van Beersum for participating in a political rally. Van Beersum had shown his solidarity with a militant group which was protesting while President Aquino delivered his State of the Nation Address before Congress on July 22. He was declared an “undesirable alien” by the BI and was put on the plane to Amsterdam after a 30-hour detention at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers strongly protested Van Beersum’s deportation, and rightly so, because it violated the guarantees of free expression and peaceful assembly to which foreign visitors are entitled under international law.

This incident reminded me of my own deportation in 1972 by former Immigration Commissioner Edmundo Reyes because of my involvement in the labor movement and a strike in the Iligan Electric Company. That happened after the declaration of martial law when strikes were forbidden by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. I was also declared an “undesirable alien.” Because of much pressure from my superior and some bishops, Reyes allowed me to come back to the Philippines.

Many years later, I was again harassed by the BI when I joined a demonstration against President Gloria Arroyo and likened her regime with that of dictator Marcos’. I was summoned to appear in the BI but my good friend lawyer Theodore Te advised me not to go to the BI; instead he wrote a letter to the immigration commissioner, saying that it was against the Constitution to penalize me for joining a demonstration or for criticizing the Arroyo regime.

I am a great supporter of President Aquino. During his campaign for the presidency I promised him that, if he would be elected president, I would become a Filipino citizen. I was not able to fulfill that promise because I didn’t have all the money needed to pay the lawyer who would fix my Filipino citizenship. Now I want to suggest to our President that he clean up the BI from “undesirable personnel”; and tell the Department of Labor and Employment to restore the right of the workers to form an independent labor union and to abolish the big anomaly of contractual labor. These are the bad remnants of the martial law era. After Edsa, we are living again in a democratic society and it is high time to remove these remnants of martial law from our government.

—ARNOLD VAN VUGT
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