OPINION

Historic opportunity

Re: "Immigration games", (PostBag, Dec 19).

Covid-19's made millions of Thais unemployed or underemployed, and dried up our daily stream of immigrants, a far cry from the millions of tourists and investors who contributed over 18% of our GDP annually. What an ideal time to totally revamp our Immigration Division to attract the foreigners we need to develop our full potential.

We should radically change our mindset and view foreigners primarily as target markets of customers to be wooed, not potential crooks to be controlled. Our immigration personnel and procedures should be key parts of our sales force to attract and keep non-Thais with the skills, funds and investments we sorely lack. We should consult embassies and chambers of commerce on how to fill our needs for security, etc. at minimum cost and inconvenience to our prospects. We should clean up the "immigration games" that "Farangs Anonymous" mentions in his letter.

We should ask for any information only once, unless that information's changed. The Immigration Division's website must be up to date, multilingual, and authoritative, with FAQ and live chat sections. Foreigners should be able to do routine business, like annual visa renewals, at any police station. After, say, five annual renewals, we should consider five-year visas unless there's a change of residency, etc.

We have a historic opportunity we shouldn't waste.

Re: "Prayut warns of lockdown", (BP, Dec 22).

Sounds to me like the decision has been made and is being rolled out slowly. Again, how many people have died from CV? How many have died from this "pandemic that is about to spiral out of control again and kill thousands"? How many are deathly ill in the ICU? Do lockdowns actually work? Do masks actually work? Does this killer virus only come out at night? Does the government desire another boogeyman fear campaign? Answers: 60, 0, (2 or 3?), no, no, 555, obviously. Stand up to the scam people, it's a flu and the numbers prove it.

Have you noticed that the plea for most crimes committed is "insanity" or "under the influence" of either alcohol or drugs? A man shoots dead a hospital director and claims he was under the influence of drugs. A teen shoots a father, the plea, under the influence of this or that, or insanity. How long is the justice system going to put up with these pleas? So many sane people commit crimes of passion, murder, robberies, and when caught, plead, oh, I was under the influence of… (you fill in the choices). Most are set free, given bail or simply fined and let go. God forbid, a farang, a Myanmar, a non-Thai enters one of these pleas. It is ignored. He/she is incarcerated, key thrown away and that person will rot in jail for life.

However, the Thai constitution guarantees justice for all and all are equal under the law. It is just that some people are more equal than others. The richer one is, the more benevolent the justice he receives.