Discriminated!

By Rolo B. Cena
The Gulf Files
Dumaguete Star Informer
24 July 2011

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Travel has always fascinated me. Since I started travelling outside of the country in 1996, I never had done so without making sure my travel documents are ready.

Superstitions have, by certain norms and questionable bases, associated number “13” to bad luck. As I don’t believe in this and have always believed in the providence of God, travelling on the 13th of June 2011 to Jordan was just as normal and ordinary as travel during the April Fools’ Day.

On the instruction of the Management, I, along with my team member, a Jordanian, engaged on a premature seventeen-day business trip to Jordan, one of the countries I dreamed of visiting for three reasons: The Baptism Site of Jesus, the Memorial of Moses and the Dead Sea. It was premature in the sense that as planned by the team, it should have been a week later to make us ready for the activities.

The classy and gigantic Royal Jordanian Airline Airbus A310 took off from Riyadh International Airport twenty minutes past six in the humid evening and touched down the airport of Amman, the Capital City of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan two hours after. Passing through the Immigration officer, I handed my passport, my invitation letter from our subsidiary company in Jordan, certification from the headquarters of the conglomerate, and twenty Jordanian Dinars for my business visa. After examining my papers, he asked me to sit down and wait for his call.

After about ten minutes of frantically waiting, a dark non-English speaking Jordanian ushered me to a small office where I met an Arabic speaking officer. He was asking me for my return ticket. Their order was: fly back to Riyadh for travelling without visa. My heart began to pound and I started to entertain the fear that I had been trying to erase from my mind: denied and banned.

In a scant quantity of Arabic language, I managed to secure the nod of the officer to bring my Jordanian colleague in the same room where I was detained. I prayed and decided to call our Vice President in Riyadh who was himself a Jordanian. He called and negotiated for my visa. After more than two hours of detention, I was granted a one-month visa.

In our conversation wit the immigration officer, I requested my colleague to ask why my entry to Jordan was almost denied when tourists are welcome in the Kingdom. Translated, I come to know that airport visas are not allowed to Indonesians, Pakistanis, Sri-Lankans, Bangladeshis, Yemenis, Hindis (Indians), and Filipinos, among other nationalities mentioned. Specifically for us Filipinos, the reason is: terrorism.

Further the officer made mention of the popular engagement of our Muslim factionalists in the south and the world-watched August hostage taking that claimed lives of Chinese tourists.

What a way to discriminate Filipinos in this area where we used to be favored in the human capital exchange market? What exactitude of reference to this malignant social stigma that has been plaguing the country?

Can we blame them?

Rationally, no! We cannot blame them for placing us parallel with these nationalities. Just as we cannot blame employers in the Middle East and/or Gulf Countries for discriminating Filipinos in terms of compensation packages, workloads and social treatment when most of the overseas Filipino workers abused their positions, the privileges and the responsibilities assigned to them. But still surely, we are far different from them.

But what is it in us?

Undoubtedly, we are world class workers; we are world premier performers. Indisputably though, that favorable review about our race has gone down the drain. It was wasted when the Graham couples were kidnapped and tortured in Mindanao; when the protectors of the country attempted to dethrone a government made by people; when the friendly image of the country was stained by one false move of one officer in August last year; when a lot of Filipinos jump-shipped or toured countries and never come back.

Can we blame them?

Rationally, no! We have been promoting the country as a peaceful country and yet all branches of the government are in trouble with each other; one is trying to out-best the other; one is trying to superimpose over the other. Who shall believe us when our lawmakers are law breakers themselves?

Can we blame them?

Rationally, no! We cannot blame them to believe that we are socially well when one of our congressmen has been in drug mess in the neighboring Hong Kong state. We cannot blame them when the country is still listed in the travel bans of most countries.

And surely, we cannot blame them to enlist us in the roster of terrorists when terrorism and related activities are apparent in our home front.

For as long as we maintain the same perspective in our socio-economic and political life as a nation, we will still become victims of racism or discrimination.