Mother And Son Not Allowed To Leave Philippines

[Dave Hounddriver]

Does anyone know why they changed where they put the stamps?

 

Never thought about it until you mentioned it here.  So I Googled and here is what they say:

 

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1146055/immigration-department-end-visitor-passport-stamps

 

The switch from a half-a-century-long tradition of stamping to a system of computer-generated slips at all border points is to improve efficiency and prevent mistakes, the department said.

 

The new HK$30 million system will save each visitor, on average, three seconds at the border when entering the city, Assistant Immigration Director (Information Systems) Corrado Chow said.

 

 

By the date on the article we can see that they stopped stamping passports in HongKong early in 2013

[afathertobe]

An expensive lesson that was... can't cancel my flights and have to rebook a flight from Beijing to Manila to Singapore to Phuket... all thanks to a rather idiotic system where they wouldn't let their citizens go to holidays in Thailand with a flight ticket, sufficient funds, a letter of guarantee and a hotel booking... 

[brock]

Yes and yet it says that Filipino`s have the right to travel....I think it is much easier leaving from Cebu, Rather than Clarke or Manila, Thats where it seems to be more of a problem.

[Methersgate]

Yes and yet it says that Filipino`s have the right to travel....I think it is much easier leaving from Cebu, Rather than Clarke or Manila, Thats where it seems to be more of a problem.

 

Clark (where we flew from) is, by all accounts, particularly bad.

[robert k]

An expensive lesson that was... can't cancel my flights and have to rebook a flight from Beijing to Manila to Singapore to Phuket... all thanks to a rather idiotic system where they wouldn't let their citizens go to holidays in Thailand with a flight ticket, sufficient funds, a letter of guarantee and a hotel booking... 

And you would expect different, why?

[afathertobe]

 

An expensive lesson that was... can't cancel my flights and have to rebook a flight from Beijing to Manila to Singapore to Phuket... all thanks to a rather idiotic system where they wouldn't let their citizens go to holidays in Thailand with a flight ticket, sufficient funds, a letter of guarantee and a hotel booking... 

And you would expect different, why?

 

 

Why I would expect different? Because I didn't expect the Phils to resemble North Korea, that's why. I made the not unreasonable assumption that when a citizen of the Philippines wants to go to a country, has a Visa, a flight and a nice hotel booked and sufficient cash to pay for the holidays that he/she is able to do so like all their South East Asian neighbours, even much poorer Cambodia. 

 

Or is there a deeper meaning to your comment? 

[Methersgate]

 

 

An expensive lesson that was... can't cancel my flights and have to rebook a flight from Beijing to Manila to Singapore to Phuket... all thanks to a rather idiotic system where they wouldn't let their citizens go to holidays in Thailand with a flight ticket, sufficient funds, a letter of guarantee and a hotel booking... 

And you would expect different, why?

 

 

Why I would expect different? Because I didn't expect the Phils to resemble North Korea, that's why. I made the not unreasonable assumption that when a citizen of the Philippines wants to go to a country, has a Visa, a flight and a nice hotel booked and sufficient cash to pay for the holidays that he/she is able to do so like all their South East Asian neighbours, even much poorer Cambodia. 

 

Or is there a deeper meaning to your comment? 

 

 

The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1521, when they were claimed by Magellan or 1564, when Legaszpi's expeiition to colonise the archipelago (the fourth to be sent) was sucessful, until 1898.

 

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Philippines were conquered not by expeditions from Spain, as is often thought, but from "New Spain", i.e., from Mexico, and the Philippines was governed as a dependency of the colony of Mexico, and not from Spain, until Mexico rebelled and threw out the Spanish, (between  September 27th 1821 when the Mexicans recognized their independence and 1836 when Spain did so.)

 

The point I am making here is that, whilst the Philippines has the appearance of a republican democracy on the American model - and indeed its constitution is closely patterned on the US one, the underlying structure of laws and customs is that of a colony of a Spanish colony, with somewhat brutal laws imposed on its people, and this colonial attitude of mind persists in many Government departments to this day.

 

The peculiar status of the Church arises because of an historical accident - Mexico like most former Spanish colonies if not all of them was ruled, in practice, by the friars. Spain did not have a professional colonial civil service on the British model; it had friars. Friars were sent to Manila from Mexico to govern the Philippines, and they did. There was no separation of Church and State. Mexico and the other Latin American colonies went through a phase of acute anti-clericalism as part of the process of throwing off the Spanish yoke, and indeed the fathers of the Philippine revolution were themselves soundly anti-clerical (just look at the novels of Rizal!)  The Philippines Revolution was cut off before it could be completed by the American purchase of the Philippines, resulting in the Church switching sides from Spain to the USA, and the US Episcopal Church announcing that it was not interested in a "battle of the altars", thereby handing control of much of Filipino life back to the Catholic Church.

 

This results in a paternalist approach to "the masa" which together with the colonial legacy of draconian laws ("estafa" covers everything from bouncing a cheque to alleging that an official is dishonest!)   results in weird laws like these - another being the idea that the Filipinos, uniquely on the planet, should not be allowed to divorce!

 

A friend, a male, graduate, computer programmer, was stopped at Clark and prevented from flying to a business meeting in Kuala Lumpur. I kid you not.    

Some background reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1521%E2%80%931898)#Spanish_expeditions_and_colonization

Edited November 5, 2014 by Methersgate

[Thomas]

The point I am making here is that whilst the Philippines has the appearance of a republican democracy on the American model - and indeed its constitution is closely patterned on the US one, the underlying structure of laws and customs is that of a colony of a Spanish colony, with somewhat brutal laws imposed on its people, and this colonial attitude of mind persists in many Government departments to this day.

  Yes, Filipin laws are made to protect ONLY the LEADERS

instead of what laws are suppoused to do = protecting the WEAK part mainly...  :bash:

The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1521, when they were claimed by Magellan or 1564, when Legaszpi's expeiition to colonise the archipelago (the fourth to be sent) was sucessful, until 1898.

Well. Some funny if they claimed it being a Spanish colony allready when Magellan went there, because he LOST against chief Lapu-Lapu :mocking:        Magellan was killed and some Spanish side survivers fled to Talibon, Bohol.  (They settled there, married locals, breeded pigs (I believe). That's why the first Catholic church on Filipin ground was built in Talibon later.

 

 

BTW - The Malays in south of the Philippines are angry they didn't got freedom, when USA made Phils STOPED being a colony and gave the power to Filipins (Manila) although the Malays claim no one - except USA - have defeeted them, either Filipins or Spain/Mexico.

[afathertobe]

That is some very interesting background information, thanks for that.

 

Well now all the new flights are booked, and there are no refunds with Nok air (connecting flight) and the refund policy of Air China will be interesting to test as well... all in all about 1'000 Euros spent on this lesson, as you can imagine I'm not very happy. I might be Swiss but I'm no money-sh&tting pig. 

[Jack Peterson]

Yes and yet it says that Filipino`s have the right to travel..

 

 

Oh yes! they have a right to travel, just not the right to leave their own country :no:   :unsure:

I guess the person who thought up the "It's More fun in the Philippines" SLOGAN is on Gardening leave now?  :rolleyes:

 

JP :tiphat:  :morning1:

 

Morning All!