Palace to Trump: You once said Phl was a special place

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang decried US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s lumping the Philippines among “terror nations” in his latest tirade against immigrants.

Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said Filipinos stand in solidarity with peace-loving countries in the world, and he reminded Trump of the latter’s public profession of his love for the Philippines and his investments in the country.

“In fact, Mr. Trump has even professed his love for the Philippines during the launch of his 57-story luxury apartment in Makati. He did say, ‘I’ve always loved the Philippines. I think it is just a special place and Manila is one of Asia’s most spectacular cities. I know that this project (Trump Tower) will be second to none’,” the Secretary said yesterday in message sent through Viber.

“The Philippines and the Filipino people stand in solidarity with other peace-loving countries and individuals in fighting and opposing terrorism in all its forms,” he said.

In a rally in Portland, Maine Thursday afternoon, Trump likened immigration to a Trojan horse, out of which terrorists would spring out and destroy America.

He said the US should be wary of immigrants – if they follow the legal process in securing citizenship.

“You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time,” he said, reprising a warning that terrorists – including members of the Islamic State extremist group – will sneak into the US as refugees. “This is a practice that has to stop.”

He pointed to the Somali immigrant population as an example of the “thousands” of refugees who have flooded into Maine and other US states and caused problems.

Trump said efforts to resettle Somali refugees – many of them in Minnesota – were “having the unintended consequence of creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state’s... safety net and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamist terror groups.” He then listed several immigrants, mostly from Muslim majority countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Uzbekistan, Yemen and the Philippines – who were arrested for conducting or threatening to carry out violent attacks, teaching bomb-making to recruits and otherwise supporting terror groups.

“We’re dealing with animals,” he seethed.

Trump caused an uproar last December when he called for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the US, and he has harangued his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for seeking to allow many times more refugees into the country than President Barack Obama has.

“Hillary Clinton wants to have them come in by the hundreds of thousands,” Trump warned Thursday, to a chorus of boos. “You’re going to have problems like you’ve never seen.”

Earlier, Trump branded Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.

“We’re letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn’t be allowed because you can’t vet them. There’s no way of vetting them. You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time,” Trump was also quoted as saying.

For Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, Trump should be barred from entering the country “for being inimical to national interest.”

In a resolution, Salceda said “there is no feasible basis or reasonable justification to the wholesale labeling of Filipinos as coming from a ‘terrorist state’ or that they will be a Trojan horse.”     

He said Trump’s statement is part of the US candidate’s pronouncements showing his “unrepentantly negative…aggressively adversarial attitude towards immigrants in the US, where he aspires to be the leader.”

Salceda said such attitude could “influence policies affecting four million Filipino-Americans, who, according to the US State Department, comprise the second largest population of Asian Americans.”

“Such ugliness of utterances, largely unprompted and undeserved, are in stark contrast to the fact that said Donald J. Trump has been a beneficiary of Filipino hospitality, including patronage of his joint property project called Trump Tower at Century City with 56 stories worth P6 billion now fully sold, from which he has earned handsomely,” Salceda added.

He pointed out that because he is a candidate for president of the most powerful country in the world, the remarks of Trump “have had widespread dissemination, thus aggravating the shame it has already put on Filipinos and Filipino Muslims, including Filipino migrants and overseas Filipino workers who our society have recognized as modern heroes of our country.”