ONE of the enduring laudable qualities of Filipinos has something to do with how we treat our visitors at home and in the community where we live. We are noted for our hospitality.
We welcome with open arms nationals of other countries who come to our shores for a sundry of reasons -- to do business, to contract marriage with our beautiful women, to pursue religious missionary work, or to engage in the local academe’s edifying endeavors.
We are known for going out of our way to please our visitors sometimes to the point of subservience.
Trouble starts when some of these foreign nationals start engaging in monkey business. This is true with pedophiles, drug pushers, scammers, human traffickers and other kinds of evil men. Indeed, our law enforcers should be very vigilant against these shadowy characters.
Take the case of Lenox James Ellis, a 71-year-old British national, who has been charged with child abuse after half a dozen unaccompanied minors were rescued from his house at a posh subdivision in Davao City. Now, Ellis is a fugitive from justice, after Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 33 Judge Lope Calio cancelled the British national's bail, when he failed to show up during an arraignment scheduled September 29.
We say that our lawmen should be more aggressive in running after misbehaving foreigners so that we can get rid of undesirable aliens in our country. As it is, we already have a surfeit of misbehaving fellow countrymen.
In the case of Ellis, police investigators should have been fast enough to file an trafficking case after the child abuse charges. It appeared that the Briton managed to post bail because he was only charged with child abuse which is a bailable offense. This gave Ellis the chance to escape.
The Briton could not have done this if the trafficking charge had been slapped on him immediately because bail is not allowed in a trafficking case.
Hopefully, authorities could learn lessons from the Ellis case and this is to be fast enough in filing appropriate charges. For instance, the capture of the fugitive Briton can be expedited by circulating his photographs.