MANILA, Philippines – Albay 2nd District Representative Joey Salceda filed a resolution seeking to ban Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from entering the Philippines after he lumped the country among “terrorist nations.”

Should it be passed, House Resolution Number 143 would order the Bureau of Immigration to “permanently refuse” Trump entry into the Philippines.

Trump said during an August 4 rally that immigrants coming from the Philippines and 8 other nations were arrested for conducting or threatening to carry out violent attacks, teaching bomb-making to recruits, and supporting terror groups.  

“We are letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn’t be allowed because you can’t vet them… You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time. This is a practice that has to stop,” said Trump, whose campaign is built on an anti-immigration platform. 

In his resolution, Salceda said Trump “clearly generated impressions not conducive to public good and has shown disrespect or makes offensive utterances to the Filipino people.”

He added that Trump has “no feasible basis” to justify that Filipinos come from a “terrorist nation” or that they will be a Trojan horse. 

“This comes from a long line of pronouncements where he has demonstrated an unrepentantly negative, dysfunctionally nativist, aggressively adversarial attitude towards immigrants in the USA where he aspires to be the leader, and thus could be in a position to influence policies affecting 4 million population of Filipino descent, according to the US State Department, the second largest population of Asian Americans,” said Salceda. 

The lawmaker also described Trump’s remarks as “largerly unprompted and undeserved” because he said the Republican candidate has been a beneficiary of Filipino hospitality through the Trump Tower at Century City joint property project in Makati. 

According to Salceda, Trump’s influence as the candidate of a major US political party can also be detrimental to Filipinos staying and working overseas.

“Because of his current stature as a candidate of a major political party for President of the most powerful country of the world, his remarks have had widespread dissemination, thus aggravating the shame it has already put Filipinos and Filipino Muslims, including Filipino migrants and overseas Filipino workers who this House and our society have recognized as modern heroes of our country,” said Salceda. 

Around 2.9 million Filipino immigrants and their children live in the US, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute in July 2014. 

The Migration Policy Institute also said Filipinos comprise the 4th biggest number of immigrants to the US, next to those from Mexico, China, and India.

Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella and Communications Secretary Martin Andanar both questioned Trump’s controversial remarks over the weekend. – Rappler.com