With respect to the Philippines, I think it's great that Immigration is facilitating things, but I also think the devil is in the details. Similar action was taken for Haiti, and people from Haiti claim that very little happened. I believe your announcement said that the Filipino cases would be “prioritized” for people from “affected areas”. Now that sounds reasonable, but also very vague. At some point will we know how many additional people from the Philippines are actually let in as a consequence of this, whether it means that specific waiting times will be dramatically reduced for family members, and so on?
On November 21st, 2013. See this statement in context.