Originally posted by Pauldo@Sep 7 2005, 10:51 AM

At the end of the day though, Filipinos have but themselves to blame, to a certain degree. An old drinking friend of mine, who once worked in the US embassy in Manila, told me that at one stage, about 10 years ago, there was a 60% 'failure to return rate' on Filipinos going to the USA on tourist visas. Hence the massive crackdown. I can imagine the UK is/was somewhat similar. And the Manila Embassy obstacle course is designed to weed out the serious and diligent from the weak opportunists and scum bags.
Yes, there is some truth in that. They wouldn't all be treated like corrupt criminals if most of them weren't, well, corrupt criminals. Almost all of the ills of that country can be blamed on filipinos themselves stealing, robbing, raping and screwing each other over, with a total disrespect for democracy, the rule of law or a civilsed society.

But despite this, the Embassy should STILL remain objective when assessing an application, rather than assuming every filipina applicant is a gold digging bargirl out to make a quick buck with an application full of forged documents. Pre judging a person because of their race or country is still, literally, prejudice. We (the UK) should be better than that, otherwise we are no better than those we are 'judging'.