U.S. travel ban redux: Philippines dodges bullet

Per news reports, the Trump administration is in the process of finalizing a list of countries that will be included in a new Muslim Travel Ban.

However, based on the leaked drafts, it appears that many countries on the list aren’t Muslim-majority nations. Hence, to call it a Muslim Travel Ban is a misnomer.

Why not simply call it Travel Ban Redux?

To recall, the original Muslim Travel Ban, while barreling through a cascade of federal court challenges from its original inception in January 2017 until its judicial validation eighteen months later, was forced to undergo a number of statutory facelifts and revisions before its final toned-down version received a stamp of approval from a divided US Supreme Court.

Consequently, nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela, except those with valid US permanent residency or visas, were indefinitely barred from the US.

The ban was lifted when the Democrats took the helm of government in January 2021.

Fast forward to April 2025, and travel ban déjà vu is starting to rear its ugly noggin. This time around more than 40 countries face the prospect of being lobbed into a three-tiered pit of an exclusionary dungeon ranging from an absolute ban to limited entry restrictions to being subjected to probationary scrutiny.

Fortunately for the Philippines, and despite its Muslim minority population and Abu Sayyaf connection, the country is nowhere near the top of the list; it doesn’t appear in the middle nor at the bottom either.

In fact, the Philippines is nowhere to be found on the list.

Considering that travel to certain areas of the Philippines tagged “war or conflict zones” was included in the European Union’s past electronic travel authorization, it is a breath of fresh air that the Philippines is catching a break this time.

For a change, the oft-repeated platitude of “our enduring friendship and alliance” between the US and the Philippines, which presumably played a key role in the decision to exempt, proved to be more than just a dull cliché.

Going back to the list, appearing in the first-tier category called the “red” list, which to the Trump government is akin to a bunch of Axis of Evil surrogates, are Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and, paradoxically, the tiny majority-Buddhist Himalayan nation of Bhutan.

Nationals of these countries, presumably with the exception of green card holders and those with valid visas, are barred indefinitely from entering the US.

To the second group belong Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan. Dubbed the “orange” list, countries in this sub-category are subject to partial visa restrictions.

The third group includes mostly Third World African nations which, to avoid a partial ban, are required to fix their lackadaisical approach toward travel security vetting within a sixty-day probationary period. Comprising this sub-group are Angola, Zimbabwe, Benin, Gambia, Liberia, Chad, and twenty other African countries.

Needless to say, the Philippines dodged the proverbial bullet when the notorious “tanim bala” (bullet planting) and “pastillas” (money roll bribe) airport scandals did not sink it like a stone.