“What Should You Do When a Public Servant Asks You to Shut Up.” This is the word that came out from Roselle Carreon, a teacher by profession who took her ire into cyber space by posting it on her official Facebook account.
With the use of social media, Roselle Carreon, who described herself as a wife a foreigner discovered that using Facebook is one of the most effective way of making people listen to her complaints.
Teacher Roselle Carreon wrote a post titled “What should you do when a public servant asks you to SHUT UP: SPEAK!” emphasizing clearly the world Shut Up and Speak Up. The post was published by Carreon on March 25, 2014 and since then it went viral on Facebook receiving various comments from netizens.
The Filipino teacher recounts that she and her husband went to the Bureau of Immigration in Makati’s Extension Office on Monday to settle her husband’s ACR 1 or the Alien Certificate of Registration Identity card.
Based upon the post of Roselle Carreon, they asked “properly” asked a certain Carlo Salazar, who she (–foul word(s) removed–)umed as the office supervisor, if she could claim the ID of her husband because he would be out of the country by the time it would be released.
Carreon narrated that Salazar stood up and told her, “Shut up! Kailangan paulit-ulit ang tanong. ‘Di ba, in-explain ko na (Why do I have to keep on repeating myself? Didn’t I already explain)! Why didn’t you tell your husband?
For more details, Here’s the Full Post of Roselle Carreon on Facebook:
Immigration Commissioner Siegfred Mison:
I have been in and out of the Philippines for almost ten years. Among the several countries in Asia, I have learned to love this country mainly because business has been good here, and I have many good-humored, creative and outspoken Filipino business (removed)ociates. There are plenty of things to admire about the Philippines.
However, being a businessman, I am deeply bothered by how mob rule, in the form of the social media is becoming the norm here. What happened at the immigration bureau is an example of such. A business partner of mine was at the BI Makati office when the actual incident transpired.
According to my partner, it was the Filipino woman Roselle Carreon and her foreigner husband who persistently urged the entire office if they could skip a requirement.
When told repeatedly that this could not be allowed, the husband lost his temper and shouted at an immigration staff. With my extensive experiences with immigration offices in other countries, if anyone did what they did to the BI staffer here, they would get their (removed) deported immediately.
Why the couple would want to skip an immigration procedure is anyone’s guess. If you have nothing to hide, you won’t have to skip anything.
I now ask the Filipino people to check the facts first, and uphold the rule of the law. It is unfortunate that many in the social media would draw their conclusions from a one-sided narrative, and I am surprised that even high government officials would be swayed by the demands of the unruly mob.
A one-sided Facebook rant is not the whole truth, and that is a fact. Where is the rule of law that states the accused is innocent until proven guilty? Filipinos, you can do more than that.
I am a foreigner who respects the laws of every nation I do business in, even if sometimes the bureaucracy can be tedious. I know my place as a guest of a country. I am deeply bothered when other foreigners demand special treatment, as if their host country owed them a favor.
JG McDermott Jr