Originally posted by admin@Jun 10 2005, 11:25 AM
It's strange that when I went with the wife to the Immigration centre in Liverpool, they ensured we understood everything, clearly stated where & when we should be, and went out of there way to be polite & helpful. You'd think it was a differnent country, when in fact the UK Embassy in the Philippines is still technically in the UK!!

I call the way they do RACISM, and I'll take this further. Time to find out if my new Tory MP can out do the good work the Labour MP done for me. I don't care what party they are, as long as they prove their worth.
I agree Keith, I do consider the UK Embassy in Manila's approach and treatment of filipinos quite racist (although, to be fair, it's probably about the same as they way filipino officialdom treats foreigners). The difference is that the Embassy is a guest in the Philippine country. And, you would expect them to know better, especially when they spend all their time crowing on about how life in the UK is "so much better".

And I'm not surprised that HO officials in the UK display a quite different attitude. I think it's just very easy (although in no way excusable) that embassy staff sent to a remote outpost like Manila (which is considered one of the utterly un-glamorous postings to get which they all try and avoid) soon forget about 'political correctness' and start displaying the most contemptible behaviour which they would never be allowed to display in either the UK OR in an Embassy in a developed country. Compare the difference in attitude of Embassy staff in Manila with those in the UK Embassy in the US. You think they speak to an American the way they speak to a filipino? Do they .......s. Even the Singapore UK Embassy (being in a first world country) displays a better, professional attitude. It is very, disappointingly, a racist approach, not, I don't think, due to the inherent racism of the staff there, but more to do with a creeping resentment built uip over the years of simply living in the Philippines. But then these are supposedly professional people - they are paid to leave their bigoted prejudices behind when they enter the paid employ of the Embassy, regardless of where they got them from or how accurate they are, and follow the rules objectively, dispassionately and, above all, without prior prejudice, but based only on the facts in front of them.

Quote from an Embassy ECO to me several years ago: "The corruption in this country is so endemic, nothing surprises me here", referring to some of the things (he claimed) have been put in front of him to support visa applications. He therefore approaches every visa appliation with a large dose of heavy cynicism, mistrust and disbelief, and essentially waits for them to (a) prove they're not corrupt or fake BEFORE they (b ) prove they satisfy the visa criteria. In fact, an applicant SHOULD only need to do (b ).

But, stuck out there well away from the centre of things, they can and do get away with behaviour which, quite simply, would result in disciplinary action if they did it back here. There's no comeback, no need to fear a disciplinary response. If anyone complains, well, "they're only a filipino" and, as they reject 90% of all applications, they can hide behind the excuse of "they're just a filipino with an axe to grind because he didn't get a visa", neatly avoiding the fact that the visa process itself is thoroughly flawed and operated by people whose competence is well below par.

On the other hand, I suppose you could say that it is filipinos alone who reduced their country to the pitiful state it is today with rampant corruption which means most developed countries look on them with suspicion because the Philippines has managed to give itself the unenviable reputation of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and therefore they only have themselves to blame. Unfortunately, this means that the individual filipino is punished by the crimes of his collective countrymen. It's not right, it's not fair, and no doubt it encourages even the most upstanding of filipinos to consider a corrupt way forward when it is the ONLY way forward left to them. Vicious circle.

But still, you would have hoped that a supposedly modern, first world country, with the experience of an empire across the world and whose (retrospective) vision for it was to modernise the world, would try a little harder to push past their own bigoted prejudices and treat even the poorest and most imappropriate filipino applicant with at least a modicum of respect. Anything less simply degrades the Embassy, and us, who pay for it. If that's how they treat filipinos, who are they to sneer at them for their own mistreatment of each other and foreigners?