I also have some friends who legitimately married Filipino women in the Philippines and were in love, but were given an awful time when their documents were being processed for a visit to the man's home country. Some commentators in the British press have argued that the "Home Office" is not fit for purpose.

I heard of a case where a British farmer married a Filipino woman abroad. Though her application for a British tourist visa was refused on more than one occasion, she and her husband were able to spend Christmas in Germany, because the German visa office were good enough to grant her a visa!
Some years ago, a retired company director in his 70's married a Thai woman in Thailand. In spite of not being able to speak a word of English, she gained entry into the UK, and was photographed by a Sunday rag happily washing her British husband's Mercedes on a summer's day.
A few years ago, there was a case of two gay British citizens who had employed an American woman as a surrogate mother. The baby got British citizenship, at the second attempt, because one of the gay men was the owner of a successful company that designed clothes.

But of course we only take notice of the cases where there have been problems, and ignore the many successful applicants who are settled and studying for their citizenship test.

But any of us who are subjected to means tests before our foreign spouses can enter the UK will of course take special notice of this, and choose to berate the British Home Office thereafter, and quite rightly so. After all, 'we' are the ones that said organisation has discriminated against, not you!