News on the ‘No US Visa Policy’ was a cruel joke

Several travelers were departing back to the Philippines at the San Francisco International Airport the week after Easter when the rumor about a “No US Visa Policy” spread 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 it was that Filipinos were no longer required to get visas to enter the United States. I told her that she had her information wrong. I saw the disappointment in her face.  I remembered reading a posting in Facebook that morning about what she was referring to. When I read it, I knew right away that the article was a joke, a satire.

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  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 US visas for Filipinos. But many recipients of the “no US visa policy” article  felt it was cruel on the part of the author and persons spreading the news to release misleading information to many people who have been waiting so long to see their loved ones.

Visa waiver program

The US has designated some countries as visa exempt. Most of those designated are European countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany among others. But in Asia, very few are considered 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 percent of the total visitors granted and denied.

The Philippines is not designated as a country under the visa waiver program for obvious reasons. Not only is the rate of refusal of visitor visas high, the Philippines is also considered a high “fraud” post. Every applicant for a visitor’s visa at the US 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 US Embassy issue less visas and decline more applications. For these reasons, the Philippines is not qualified for exemption from the US visa requirement.

A cruel joke

No matter how good the intention of the blog writer was to satirize the visa requirements, many Filipinos were affected by it.  While it is true that some Filipinos travel to the US only for a vacation, many other Filipinos come to visit family members with whom they have been separated for a long time.

The US 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 US. Thus, when the satire about the “no visa policy” was spreading in the social media, many became excited by the possibility of finally seeing their loved ones again. And since it turned out to be fake news, they became indignant and considered it a very cruel joke.

We all hunger for good news. Oftentimes, however, we become a victim to our own desires to hear the news we want to hear.

(Atty. Lourdes Santos Tancinco may be reached at [email protected] or at (02)7211963 or visit her website at www.tancinco.com)