Philippines police told to treat foreigners with respect

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines immigrations office has issued an appeal to local law enforcers to respect foreigners after a top official said good treatment of visitors is necessary for Filipi

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines immigrations office has issued an appeal to local law enforcers to respect foreigners after a top official said good treatment of visitors is necessary for Filipinos to be treated well abroad.

Immigration Commissioner Siegfred Mison said that Filipinos must set an example on respecting the tourists, to be treated well in other countries.

Mison took exception of recent incidents when several tourists from Saudi Arabia fell victim to extortion by certain members of the Manila and Makati City police.

Reports said that policemen in Manilaโ€™s Malate tourist district arrested two Saudi nationals, Mustafa Abdullah Al Shanquity and Fuad Abdullah Almohsin, alleging criminal offences.

The police officers slapped various charges against the Saudis and even money was demanded from the duo in exchange for their release. The incident came to the attention of Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada after a courtesy call with Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Al Hassan.

Estrada said the modus operandi is a typical โ€œhulidapโ€ ploy by corrupt law enforcers who use intimidation to extort and โ€œprey on tourists in trouble or in dire circumstances.โ€

It also came to the attention of authorities that at least one or two cases of tourists being victimised by the so-called hulidap operations every day in the Ermita district.

Meanwhile, a ranking police official from the Manila Police District, who refused to be identified, said that police officers from Station 5 could also be providing protection to robbers and snatchers.

According to Mison, South Koreans topped the chart of top ten tourists in the Philippines in 2013 with 1,010,056 arrivals from January 1 to December 5 this year. It was followed by the United States with 649,664 tourist arrivals to the Philippines and Japan with 371,122.

Mison reminded foreigners who were victimised by hulidap police or โ€œkotong copsโ€ to surface and file their formal complaints at the Bureau of Immigrations satellite offices.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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