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VICE-PRESIDENT Noli de Castro said on Monday that
Filipinos should get used to travel advisories issued by countries
such as the United States, Australia and Canada.
De Castro told reporters in
Malacañang that it’s high time that Filipinos should not be
onion-skinned on matters involving travel warning by foreign
countries.
He explained that if the
government would continue to oppose the travel advisories issued
against the foreigners stay in the country the discussion will only
prolong.
De Castro also articulated that
despite the repeated warnings, foreigners continue to flock in
various parts of the country because of the tourism attraction.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary
Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said the (Philippine) government could, too,
warn of its citizen in traveling to “crime-prone” areas like the
Bronx district in New York.
“They always do that . . . we
can also say prohibit our citizens from loitering in their areas
that are crime prone,” Ebdane told reporters in a chance interview
in Camp Aguinaldo.
“We can say . . . or we can
always say that don’t loiter around in Bronx, New York . . .
it’s the same thing,” Ebdane said, adding that travel advisories
is normal.
He also said that it’s actually
“much better” for foreign countries to issue travel advisories
to their citizens here in the country.
“If there’s no advise and
something happens, they have somebody to blame . . . now if
there’s an advise and you still go get there and there and
victimized, it’s because of your own fault,” Edbane said.
The US Embassy in Manila last
Friday issued a travel warning to citizens, saying that it had
received information that terrorist could launch bombings in Central
Mindanao “over the next several days.”
On the other hand, the Australian
government, citing “credible” information that terrorists were
now in the “advanced stage of planning an attack,” warns its
people of going to Basilan, Jolo and Tawi-Tawi. Sam
 --Sam
Mediavilla and Anthony Vargas
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