My NAIA Terminal 3 Immigration Experience: Part One

It feels as if it was just yesterday.

I had everythig planned out for my first ever international travel. I had all hotel booking vouchers, return tickets, detailed itinerary, bank statements, and even a travel insurance. Months before, I didn’t really think it was hard. I thought that with my passport and tickets, I’d be able to go through smoothly.

Until I’ve read a series of news about Immigration Officers offloading passengers in doubt of their real purpose. This is done to prevent undocumented OFWs and lessen human trafficking. It’s a nice ideal, but the consequence is that  even legit tourists who only want to spend a holiday abroad can possibly be told to go home and get a bad record.

The thought of offloading made me nervous. Especially when I read their basis for doing so. I was a first timer with a clean passport and a solo traveler. Those alone are total red flags. To add up to that, I don’t have a stable employment. I’m an online freelancer.

So what I did was research. Research! Research! Research! I asked several big time Filipino travel bloggers and they responded
quite positively. I admit, their encouragement really eased me quite a lot.

And so, on August 21, my journey began.

****

It was within the hour of ten o’clock when I lined up on the immigration queue to get my passport stamped. I observed the others as I waited and remembered some tips I’ve read.

Stand confident.
Smile.
Be ready with your documents.
Line up infront of a male officer about your age.

Oh, I thought of the last one and found a time to switch lines. At some point there were foreigners being greatly questioned and there was shouting. I’m not really sure why. And when my turn came, I said hello and gave my passport and tickets. He was quite unresponsive. Okay…

IO: First time mo?
Me: Yes po.
IO: Sinong kasama mo?
Me: Ako lang po Sir.
IO: Bakit mag-isa ka lang?
Me: Busy po kasi yung family.
IO: Anong trabaho mo?
Me: Freelance writer po ako. Online.
IO: Ipakita mo saken lahat ng documents na meron ka.

I was shivering while giving my docs to him. Oh God… But I tried to stay calm as possible.

IO: Okay, so dalhin mong lahat ng to dun. Paki-fill up ng form tapos ibigay mo sa kanila.

He directed me to what I supposed was the holding area. I was subjected to secondary inspection. There were a number of people
sitting on the chairs. He gave me my documents and I thanked him.

As I was filling up the form, I could hear arguments, pleas, crying, and some desperately begging to let them go. I didn’t know I felt at that moment.
I just hoped for the best.

The form was an assessment I guess. It was very basic, asking the details of your travel. I could remember some:

Name:
Birthdate:
Purpose of travel:
Countries travelling to:
Occupation:
Budget (or something like this):
Countries travelled the past years:
Employment available in your country of destination (or something like this):

I tried my best to asnwer all, but I left a few details blank as they don’t apply to me. When it came my turn, I handed the form to a female IO.

IO: Paki-fill in lahat.

And I did as I was told. I filled in all of the blanks including “Employment available in your country of destination (or something like this)”

I wrote in “teacher”.

That was my BIGGEST MISTAKE. And you’ll see why in the next post.