My mother is a Filipina who lived her life in Saudi Arabia for many years. It was not a big surprised for us when she decided to convert her religion into Muslim since it was the right thing to do before marrying someone who is Muslim.
In 2005, she decided to spend her summer vacation in the Philippines for almost two months. This year was a year of disaster for our country after the back-to-back bombing, kidnapping and hostage taking by the well-known group of Muslim people known as Abu Sayyaf.
My mother’s plane arrival estimated at 1:00 am. Her whole body was covered with of course, a veil. The plane landed and all passengers, including my mom, got of the plane and continuously made their way into the airport. Her flight was going smoothly until she got in line to go through Philippine customs. My mother told me that she could still remember how those two Filipino officers nicely welcome her by showing a great smile while asking her to follow their way. In a closed room, my very excited mother was asked different questions such as, “When was the last time you fly back here?”, “How long are you going to stay in the country?”, “Are you on a vacation or on a business here?”, etc. Her excitement went to the point where she can easily feel and hear the fast beating of her heart. She started to feel the pressure when another officer came in and started to check one by one all the stuff inside her three big luggages. She was asked to pass over everything she had on her even her jewelry and not to touch any of her belongings for the moment. They even opened some of the
