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Dominador Awiten .

THE word “migrate” has a personal resonance for me, a nostalgic conversance.

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“Emigrate” was the word that stumped me in the semifinals of the 2nd Caltex National Spelling Bee back in April of 1969. Perhaps, it was the huge audience in front (inside the very cool Philam Theater) that befuddled me or the manner the prim and proper emcee pronounced it that I heard as “immigrate.”  When I began to spell “I-M-M-I …,” the emcee remarked “I am sorry. The word is E-M..” 

Emigrate means to leave one’s place of residence while immigrate means to come to a new country with intent to permanently reside in there. 

Confusingly similar that the speller must have to listen with utmost care to make the distinction.

Migration, from or to a place, is a human right, among the rights enshrined by the United Nations.

In our Constitution, the freedom of movement of a person, or the liberty of abode and of travel cannot be impaired except “upon lawful order of the court, or when necessary in the interest of national security, public safety or public health.”

In the leading case of Villavicencio v. Lukban (1919), Justice George A. Malcolm wrote:  “There is no law, order, or regulation which grants the Mayor of the city of Manila or the chief of police of that city the power to force citizens of the Philippine Islands — and these women despite their being in a sense lepers of society are nevertheless not chattels but Philippine citizens protected by the same constitutional guaranties as are other citizens — to change their domicile from Manila to another locality. On the contrary, Philippine penal law specifically punishes any public officer who, not being expressly authorized by law or regulation, compels any person to change his residence.”

But, in the contemporaneous ruling in the case of Rubi v. Provincial Board of Mindoro, also written by Justice Malcom, the confinement in a reservation of the non-Christian tribe of Mangyans was considered valid pursuant to a particular law and for the purpose of bringing them to “civilization.” 

The case of Marcos v. Manglapus (1989) is another example of the Court’s support to a policy of the incumbent administration.  The Court held that the return of the ousted president is a unique case of its own, and is subject to the political decision of the incumbent President within the totality of executive powers, both stated and unstated, explicit and residual. 

Today, the arrival of migrants into the United States is a very controversial matter.  While the federal courts have, in most cases, blocked and derailed President Donald Trump’s executive actions against migrants, the rulings may later change when Trump will have succeeded to pack the courts with nominees of like persuasion and ideology as his so-called fever-pitched obsession against “illegal immigrants”.

The book, I want to buy a vowel, – a novel of illegal alienation (1997) comes to mind. Written by John Welter, it is a satire about “xenophobia and religious small-mindedness,’” which, according to his political opponents, are the main features of Donald Trump’s presidency.

The expression is taken from the TV game show, Wheel of Fortune, where a contestant to answer a puzzle will have to guess a consonant or the word or else buy a vowel to complete the word.

Alfredo Santayana arrives in the border town of Waxahachie Texas, after hiking all the way from Guatemala.  He does not know any word of English and realizes he needs “to buy a vowel” from an occasional viewing of the game show in order to get by and get ahead in America. 

Meanwhile, a teenager is making pranks (pentagram drawings with sausage meat; Virgin Mary image out of a stamp machine, and the machine itself getting stolen) and unnerving the residents to demand of the sheriff to immediately arrest satan in their locality. The kids Eva (11) and Ava (8) know the truth.

They find Alfredo at an abandoned house in the woods.  Eventually, Eva and Ava convinced their father, a liberal minded minister of the church, to help Alfredo from being deported by having him take up work that is shunned by locals – scraping armadillos that are run over by speeding motor vehicles on the highway. 

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