Blacklisted artist allowed to enter Philippines

MANILA, Philippines—A government official on Wednesday said that he had ordered stricken from the immigration blacklist the name of a Filipino theater director who was barred from entering the country on March 6 for being HIV-positive.

“Marcelino [Mars] Cavestany is now free to come and go to the Philippines unless there are other reasons why he should be blacklisted,” Ronaldo Ledesma, Bureau of Immigration (BI) officer in charge, told reporters.

He clarified that Cavestany, who is now an Australian citizen, was blacklisted last year by then immigration chief Marcelino Libanan.

“I had it lifted yesterday because the country is a party to the 1994 Paris Declaration on AIDS which guarantees the right to travel of people afflicted with HIV,” Ledesma said.

According to him, he had already faxed a copy of his order to Parañaque City hospital where Cavestany was taken shortly after his arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Darwin, Australia, on Sunday.

Ledesma said that based on his investigation, it was the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) which had asked that Cavestany be blacklisted.

The actor-director and playwright was stopped by immigration agents upon his arrival at the airport. He was later brought to a hospital when he complained of fatigue.

Lawyer Antonette Mangrobang, head of the BI airport operations division, meanwhile, said her office was not in any position to apologize to Cavestany, who had cried foul over the incident and threatened to sue.

She said the immigration officers were only doing their jobs when they enforced the blacklist order; otherwise they could face administrative liabilities.

Records showed that the immigration order was issued on March 10 last year by Libanan upon the request of the office of Malou Jacob of the NCCA.

In an interview with ABS-CBN, Cavestany said the blacklist might have been prompted by a fight he had with an NCCA staff member.

Mangrobang noted that Ledesma had said that the issuance of the blacklist order appeared to have been done “haphazardly.”

Cavestany said that upon his arrival at Naia, he was shown the blacklist order which specified that he should not be allowed entry “as he will spread HIV.”

Under normal circumstances, a person on the immigration blacklist should be immediately deported back to the port of origin, she said.

According to the ABS-CBN report, Cavestany flew to the Philippines to do a film on and write a book about HIV.

Cavestany appeared in several films, including “The Great Raid,” a Hollywood film produced by Miramax which also starred Cesar Montano.

He also wrote and directed “Peregrinations,” a play based on his life.