Why is Malacañang panicking over the U.S. visa ban on officials involved in the “wrongful imprisonment” of Senator Leila de Lima that has yet to be implemented?
The panic was obvious in the President’s order at the beginning of the New Year that aside from banning the three American senators – Richard Durbin of Illinois, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Edward Markey of Massachusetts from entering the country – he had wanted “to require all Americans intending to come to the Philippines to apply and secure a visa.”
The order would trash the current policy of a 30-day visa free privilege for U.S. citizens.