EDITORIAL - Undesirable aliens?

The Bureau of Immigration has declared as undesirable aliens the three Japanese men and one Japanese woman caught videotaping a sex movie on the sandy beaches of a deserted islet off Olango island.

Undesirable? The red-hot chili peppers at the bureau must be kidding. After all those sex scenes splashed on the front pages, nothing could be more desirable right now than that Japanese woman.

Levity aside, though, the incident should provoke a serious second look at our tourism policies. Not only did the incident expose loopholes in the way we do tourism business, it also showcased the great lengths to which authorities are willing to go nowhere.

Listen. Before the incident, nobody had any inkling the problem simmered just somewhere beneath our usually myopic field of vision. We may have had similar incidents in the past, but as always we never learn. Forgetfulness has ceased to be a balm. It has become an affliction.

Just take a look at how some of the authorities, upon whose laps this high-profile media phenomenon fell, tried to squeeze in their own self-worth out of the frenzy, making it appear as if they were "on top of the situation" all along.

Well, they were not. It had to take two game wardens watching out for migratory birds to chance upon the scene of a lifetime. And after all the frantic calls have been made and responded to, the only one who was on top of the situation was one Japanese man upon one Japanese woman.

Authorities like to take undeserved credit for something they absolutely had no hand in doing. Breast-beating and self-aggrandizing becomes the order of the day. "I-told-you-sos" become standard talk in the aftermath.

And now the four Japanese have been declared undesirable aliens. Of course they are. They should be. But we forget that it was we who encouraged them to be. We made them feel they can get away with everything because we never told them anything.