Saying they were not expecting a Trump victory, at least not by that wide a margin, Filipino expats in this city see parallelisms between the new US leader and their president back home, expressing concern over the two’s speak-my-mind feistiness on certain issues, and wariness over how visa requests will be treated henceforth.
“With the previous statements made by Duterte against the US and Donald Trump’s seemingly aggressive campaign speeches, especially with regard to US foreign relation policies, war on terror and immigrants, a Trump presidency may just add fire to the seemingly worst exchanges of words between the US and its closest ally in Southeast Asia in the post-World War 2 era,” said Albert Alba, a PR and marketing professional working in Dubai since 2004.
Anthony De Leon, social media strategist, said it was a “surprising win for Trump.”
“But in fairness, he was able to raise some key valid points in his platform. Similar to Duterte, Trump is a man of surprises and we are yet to see what awaits RP-US ties, especially in terms of economic and defense cooperation,” he added.
Roy Tamano, an official of the Maranao community in the UAE and a senior human resource officer at a government-run cooperative, said “most everyone was expecting a Clinton win.”
“But the result reflects the true sentiments of the American people to have a new kind of leadership that they hope Trump can bring,” he said.
Tamano said he was not happy with the turn out. “But I need to accept the will of the majority.”
The result of the presidential race “might have shocked some people but Trump is going to be the 45th president of the US,” said Rachel U. Salinel, media practitioner.
“We can only hope that with Trump as the new president and our country having a new chief executive in Duterte, we can have a fresh start enhancing US-RP relations,” she added.
Art Los Banos, also a PR consultant, said just like Duterte, Trump “will definitely mellow down on some issues because of the office they hold.”
“They will have to balance political reality with their personal beliefs. But there is no guarantee that with their being outspoken, they will speak their minds when the issues become contentious,” Los Banos, who holds a degree in political science, said.
Danika Jade Palumar Ortaliz, graphic designer, has more immediate concerns like most Filipinos here. “I think it will now be hard to travel or migrate to the US,” she said. “As I know, Trump is not a fan of foreign people going to the US because he wants to prioritize job opportunities to Americans,” she said.
Echoed Alba, “With the huge Fil-Am community in the US (at over 3.4 million according to the US government) and their families and relatives from the Philippines travelling to the US for visits, I just hope this would not affect the issuance and approval of US visas to Filipinos wanting to enter the US.”
Added Salinel, “Filipinos who aspire the American dream will now perhaps have a difficult time as Trump had once called our country a nation of ‘illegal immigrants and troublemakers.’”
Alba said he was “expecting a much tighter race and was a bit surprised with Trump’s wide margin.” The same with Gemmy Lontoc, an executive with a UAE-wide money exchange company, who said he “thought it would be a very close fight.”
Trump won garnering 276 electoral votes as against Clinton’s 218. The candidates had to have 270 electoral votes.
Duterte had repeatedly expressed anti-US sentiments in recent official functions.
Dubai is one of seven emirates comprising the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There are approximately one million Filipinos in the UAE, some 450,000 of them living and working in Dubai, according to various official accounts.
Article written by: Jojo Dass, editor of The Filipino Times
