I truly believed that America and Americans believed in the rights of individuals and people were innocent until proven guilty. Little did I know at the time that our government had built a bureaucracy that allows civil servants to make decisions based on their "feelings", "intuition" or their perception of what the law should be and have the right to refuse to allow people to say anything in their defense. But because of these civil servants I now live in exile with my wife Carina in the Philippines.
About two years before I met Carina she got involved with a false visa. Filipino families are very close and she grew up and went to school with a cousin that obtained a degree in nursing, Carina got her degree in Biology. Anyway after graduation her cousin obtained a job in the states and through it got a visa. After she had been there for about a year she became lonely and wanted Carina to come to visit her. She also felt that once Carina was there she might be able to find a job as a caregiver and convert her tourist visa. She knew it was difficult for Filipinos to obtain tourist visas but she met two women that had gotten tourist visas with the help of a man in Manila that they said assisted them with the paper work and documents. Neither one of them had any problem with using their visas. So she felt that everything was fine and suggested to Carina that she should use the same guy and offered to send the money to pay for his services. Carina had never tried to obtain a visa before and had no idea what the requirements were so she agreed. Carina's mother was suspicious of the guy so she went with Carina the first time and asked him if the visas were real or false. He assured her mother that they were real. Then Carina started making the payments to him. She did this by making deposits into his bank account and she kept all the receipts. He talked to her and obtained information to complete the applications. He then gave her the applications to sign and forwarded them to the embassy. When she went for her interview the interviewer looked at her, asked her how old she was and why she wanted the visa, and then told her it was denied. The entire process took less than one minute. She went back to the man and told him she had been denied and told him she was upset that she had spent the money and he had assured her that there would be no problems. He then told her he would reapply but this time hand carry the documents himself. He also said she would have to pay him for the additional application fee. (He had told her previously that he was able to get visas approved because he knew many people that worked at the embassy. It is common practice in the Philippines to get things done based on whom you know so this didn�t seem strange to Carina.) He said he would talk to the embassy staff and asked for her passport, which she gave him. About six weeks later he returned the passport with a visa attached. (I was working with a man who has been assisting guys with their paperwork to bring their fianc�e or wife to the states for more than ten years. He told me that about the time Carina got her false visa there had been a problem at the embassy where a local national employee was selling blank visa documents out the back door so to speak. The people that got them, completed them, and they looked completely valid. He said there were many Filipinos that came to the states using these until the staff discovered what was happening.) Carina then bought her plane ticket to the states and a few weeks later went to the airport in Manila to board her plane. When she was passing through Philippine immigration they looked at her visa and then called the embassy to confirm that she had a visa. The embassy told them that she did not have a visa. At that point she was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), taken to their office and held where they told her she would be prosecuted. She called her family and an uncle of hers that is an attorney and held a position within the Department of Justice came to see her. He is retired now.
Two years later I came along and early on she told me about the false visa and said there might be a problem with her getting a visa. As I indicated before, I spoke to a man that helped guys get visas who said that many women had gotten into this situation before and most of them were allowed to obtain a fianc�e or spousal visa. He said she should never volunteer anything to them but be truthful when they asked questions and to always deny that she had any knowledge that it was false. So I applied for a fianc�e visa and after a number of months I received the notice that it was approved and being sent to Manila. At that point she called and obtained a packet of forms. One of the forms had a convoluted question that asked about willingly obtaining a visa through fraud, attending school between different dates etc., etc. After much discussion it was decided that she should not answer yes to the question since it seemed to indicate that the false visa was obtained willingly, which it was not. I suggested that she mention it to them at her interview but again the majority said to volunteer nothing and only answer questions. She came to Manila and underwent her physical. Two days later she waited in line for an interview. The woman she saw seemed to be nice, reviewed her papers, asked if she had told me Gaby, my step-daughter, was mine and told her that they had received the documents from the states for her fianc�e visa. Her NBI clearance came back clean showing no record. They took their passports and she was told that they would be mailed back to her with the visas in a few weeks. Nothing else was asked and nothing volunteered. After waiting three weeks and finding out that others seen on the same day were getting their visas in the mail I called and spoke to a woman, local national, that I had been told could check on the status. She checked and told me it was being processed and the staff would finish with it that afternoon and it should be in the mail the next day. The next day Carina got a call from the embassy and they asked her what happened to her previous passport. She told them it had been lost, as she told her government when she applied for a new one and as instructed by the NBI. She was later notified to report for another interview. (We both believed it was about the false visa.) She was quite afraid and I felt she might not be able to explain it to them if she was too afraid to talk. So I took a quick four-day leave and flew to Manila to be with her for the interview. I tried to keep her calm and told her that America considered people innocent until proven guilty and she would be given a chance to defend herself. I told her to just be truthful. (Of course the staff later informed me that our government recognizes no rights for non-Americans and at embassies even Americans have limited rights.)
At this point we left the embassy. After some crying on Carina's part we discussed our options and I said that I would first try to see if I could get her another interview with someone with a more open mind where she could explain what happened and if that failed I would just take an early retirement in about a year and move. Once I returned to Arizona I contacted Senator McCain's office and they told me to forget working with the embassy in the Philippines. They said they were the worst embassy in the world to deal with and suggested we contact the State Department. I agreed but also sent a FedEx letter to the ambassador asking that she be given another interview where she would be allowed to defend herself. The letter to the State Department went unanswered for about five months even after five requests from the senator's staff for an interim response. In the mean time Carina received a letter from the embassy telling her to return for another interview. The senator's office of course took credit for this and she returned at my expense. She was very apprehensive and vomited for two days pending the interview. Once she arrived she was told she really didn't have an interview but to report to window X. When she did she was given forms to request a wavier. Of course the angry woman had crossed out the option to request a wavier on the first form. (I had already checked out the wavier option with two lawyers when I returned home and was told that few are approved. They also told me that given the circumstances of her case we might be able to win but it could take five or more years and would be very expensive. Another lawyer suggested I get her a job as a maid in Hong Kong and after six months apply for another visa through the embassy there. He said we could hope they would not check with the Manila embassy.) I was quite upset with the false interview letter so I tried to call the government employee that signed the letter to her telling her she had another interview. After two late nights and about 30 calls to the embassy he finally made the mistake of answering his phone. (The first 29 or so calls resulted in getting his voice mail or his assistant who said he was not available but to call back in 30 minutes.) When he answered he told me he was sorry he had not answered my calls but he was avoiding another guy from the states that was upset because they had barred his wife, Duh, I wonder why. I explained to him what happened at Carina's interview and asked why he sent her a letter telling her to report for another interview only to be told to pick up some forms. He explained that during a routine audit, yea right, he discovered that the woman had inadvertently forgotten to check the block that Carina could ask for a waiver. (I knew he way lying since the block was checked and she scratched it out and we asked the local national at the counter about it and she said she didn't know why the woman scratched it out.) I asked him why the letter told her to report for another interview and when she got there was told to pick up some forms. He told me that was standard practice. I told him I knew that was not true since they sent forms to most applicants in the mail. He kept telling me it was our "Right" to request a waiver. The funny thing is that in both the letter to the ambassador and the State Department I indicated that we had a right by law to request a waiver. I mentioned that I had sent a letter to the ambassador and he told me it was a mistake to do that because he, Ricciardone, was to stupid to know what to do with it and would throw it in the trash. (Of course after more than three years I have not received a response but got a receipt where his secretary signed for it.) I then mentioned my congressional to the State Department and he said he had no knowledge of it but said that it was a mistake to involve senators in issues at the embassy because it would only serve to make them mad at me and nothing would change. He kept insisting it was my right to request a waiver. When I asked him what the chances of it being approved he said none. I asked him if he had ever known of one that was approved and he said no. So I asked him why I should request a waiver and again he said, "Because it is your right". I then tried to discuss the issues surrounding Carina's false visa. He told me she was a liar and not to believe anything she said. He went on to tell me that all Filipinos were liars and could not be trusted. He said "All Filipinos know how to obtain a valid visa or a false visa from BIRTH�. He went on to say if they obtain a false visa it is always with their full knowledge and consent. (The law says that the person must have obtained the false visa with their full knowledge and consent for it to apply.) When I mentioned she had not been allowed to speak at her interview and should have the right to defend herself he told me that our government doesn't recognize any rights for non-citizens and only limited rights for Americans at embassies. He then told me that they were the silent Army defending America against a massive invasion of Filipinos and nobody understood that. When I didn't agree with him he became angry. He suggested I just forget about her and move on. (I have to wonder what reality these people live in when they speak to someone that has had their fianc�e denied a visa and expects them to sympathize with them for not wanting to talk to someone else who's wife was denied a visa and then to expect them to sympathize with their plight as "the silent Army" that nobody understands.) In both the letter to the ambassador and the State Department I asked that she be given another interview where someone would impartially listen to her side of the story.
I waited three months for a response from the State Department. The Senator's office called and faxed them five times over this period but never got anything back. (In the request I went into great detail about the circumstances surrounding her false visa and included a copy of her sworn statement that was given to the NBI as well as copies of the payment receipts.) So at this point I decided that nothing was going to come of the letter and flew back over and we got married. That was August 2003. A couple of months after returning to the states I received a response from the State Department. The response was filled will outright lies stating that they had contacted me with a solution and since I had failed to respond they would at that point contact my wife. The truth is they never contacted me, that was a completely fabricated story, and since September 2003 we are still waiting for them to contact her but it was good fodder for a Senator and his staff to read. I worked long enough for the government to recognize a cover-up or a self-serving group of employees huddled in defense of each other so it became apparent to me that given the current laws, that let them do pretty much what they want, nobody could intervene with an embassy like the one in Manila so about a year later, when I was able to retire, I sold, gave or threw away everything I owned and moved to the Philippines to join my wife and daughter. (I believe from their prospective they had a record of the phone call from Philippine Immigration. Then when she appeared with a new passport and told them the other one had been lost they made the assumption that she had obtained it on purpose and was trying to cover her tracks. Discussing it with her and seeing the statement to the NBI might have cleared up much of their misperceptions but of course they don't operate that way since, as they told me, Filipinos have no rights and are all liars. Also given that they know that she was born with full knowledge of how to obtain a visa or false visa then the only conclusion they can draw is that she did it knowingly and willingly.) However this did not give them the right to totally disregard the law and deliberately deny us our right under the law to request a waiver and then to intentionally lie and cover up their illegal acts. Since this happened to us I have talked to a number of others that have had a similar experience, some also moved here while others left their wife or fianc�e to fend for themselves, mostly because they did not have the resources to move.
The thing all this taught me was to not trust my own country or it's claim to the ideals of democracy, freedom of speech and basic human rights. I doubt I will ever return to the states as long as my family is not welcome and I have a very bitter taste in my mouth towards the US, a country I spent 20 years defending in the military, only to find that they would stab me in the back and any other American for that matter that gets in their way. I can no longer say I am proud to be an American when institutions like this are allowed to flourish. Institutions made up of government civil servants that are allowed to routinely make decisions based on personal opinion and whim in a system entirely void of standard checks and balances where all decisions are final and cannot even be challenged in court should not be allowed in a democracy. My journey to this point in my life was difficult for me and I had to change much of what I perceived America to be. But now I believe I have a much more realistic view of what America really is, not what she wants her citizens and the rest of the world to believe.
After we were married my wife told me that secretly she never really wanted to move to the states but believed that if she married an American she would have no other choice. So now she believes she has the best of both worlds. I am happy also with my decision to move here and we have a good life and I keep busier than when I was working full time. I have a large family with lawyers, teachers, government employees, elected officials including two mayors in nearby towns and a couple of businessmen and they all make it their business to look out for me. I find that we have to set priorities because there are not enough hours in the day to do everything we want to do. We have plans to explore, on a wider scale, the Philippines, take a cruise but of course one that does not touch the USA, visit other Asian countries and purchase some land on the slops of Isarog, build a simple weekend home, similar to a Nipa hut, and maybe raise a few crops. A couple of our friends have done this and really enjoy spending time there.
Naga City, Bicol
