EDITORIAL — Racial bias

Police in Cebu have reportedly been ordered to monitor foreigners from the Middle East. Most of these Middle Eastern foreigners are students taking up a variety of medical courses in Cebu universities.

While the monitoring is ostensibly part of what the government has to do in its overall initiative to crack down on global terrorism, this particular directive immediately reeks of bias and unfairness.

Unless specifically restrained by law or court action, there is virtually almost no stopping the police from doing any and all kinds of surveillance work on anyone or anything. It is part of their job to do so.

But for heaven's sake, must the police try to make an international incident out of what is clearly a routine task? If it is part of their job to do so, why must the police have to tell the whole world what it is doing every step of the way?

Not only will a public announcement defeat the purpose of surveillance, it will also fuel accusations of racial bias which no official in the Philippines is adequately prepared to answer forthrightly and convincingly at this point in time.

And while it is true that global terrorism in this day and age has, more or less, become like an exclusive club for Islamic radicals, the exclusivity is never final, and any attempt to portray it as such is both erroneous and unfair.

To be sure, the Middle Eastern foreigners in our midst are aware of the fact that under the circumstances, they are being regarded with a certain degree of suspicion. They themselves probably suspect they are being quietly monitored.

So, if they have can quietly live with that fact, why rock the boat with a stupid and unnecessary announcement when everything is all hunky-dory as it is. We can understand the need of some officials to prove they are working. But please not at the expense of the innocent.