Tuesday, March 16, 2004

This morning, I spoke with my elder sister, Neth, over the phone and she told me the bad news, Leila was jailed in Hong Kong! My sister and her fellow colleagues at work decided to visit Hong Kong last Friday for a three days group tour. She arrived late last night in Manila, but, without Leila!

Leila, my inaanak and a very young widow with three sons, was a victim of fraud / forgery, which she consented and agreed on her willingness to go to the USA in the near future, fraudently have her passport stamped with arrival / departure in Brunei and Hong Kong. In her legitimate trip to Hong Kong, the Hong Kong immigration authorities discovered that the immigration stamps on her passport was fake! She definitely can afford to travel if she wants to but, that was her first trip last week, in spite of the fact that she's a millionaire!

Ate Neth called the attention of all the authorities concerned but, Leila is in Hong Kong jail and should be submitted to HK immigration laws and legal proceedings. Whoever made the scum in Leila's passport is in hot seat right now. I am not aware if this will attract media people to sensationalize the case but, hopefully, the politicians will make big headlines and no one will pay attention to a Filipina who was jailed in Hong Kong for forged entries on her passport.

Perla posted at The Entrepreneurial Filipina, describes Colonial Mentality as the mind-set of Filipinos that anything from overseas, that is, commercial goods or genetic lineage, is better than whatever is native to the Philippine Islands. On another level, it can be described as the illusion of those material qualities that gives some Filipinos a form of status, however superficial.

It is unfortunate that because of the recent incident, Leila is now blacklisted both in Hong Kong and in the USA. Many Filipinos have this colonial mentality that their lives would be better in the USA than spending their whole lives in the Philippines. In fairness with Leila, she got a very nice position being the secretary of my EX, USA is not always the Land of Bread and Honey. Because of her interest to go to the USA, she is now in jail and no one knows when the HK authorities will set her free and send her home back to the Philippines.

I had been to over 25 world cities but in my opinion, the most important thing that will make us happy, fulfilled, and contented is where our heart is. There is nothing as beautiful than to spend our lives with the people we dearly loved...