While you definitely make a very good point, all of it except for the first sentence is misguided by 1 small detail:
The marriage is not occurring in the Philippines!
The point of asking for a cenomar is to make sure that the foreigner is not married. Ok. Well the Cenomar no record result only tells the councilor that the foreigner hasn't married a filipino citizen. This would make the foreigner eligible to be married in the Philippines. Now let's look at more facts.
IF the couple is applying for a K1 visa, like I am, then we know some facts:
Both claim to not be married
The couple wants to be married in the USA, not the Philippines
The Visa is approved
While the counselor should not be doing random bs to harass the couple, the CFO states their mission is to stop what is essentially trafficking. So the actions taken by the counselor should align with this mission(yes you are right it's the Philippines and sometimes they do backwards stuff). If the actions are mission aligned, then what needs to be discovered is if the American has been married in America, because that is where the couple has been approved by the US government to be married.
With that all said, I'm sure there are some people that have tried to pull a fast one and bring a Filipino to America to be married even though they are already married in the Philippines. You are definitely right on your logic in that.
You are right in your first statement that we all have to play the CFO game, because they hold the power.
But what's the big deal? The big deal is that even though I have to play the game, I think it's a stupid game. Mostly because they are not listing this as a primary requirement and placing this power in an individuals hands. We all know that there is rampant corruption and crab mentality in the Philippines. In fact, if I was rich enough, I would not even have to do CFO because the NAIA guards can easily be paid off. I've heard some say that if the Filipino shows a bank certificate with 4k USD, they will let the citizen pass. If that's not true, they can just be paid off directly. The guards have put their jobs on the line for much less (remember the female that swallowed a passengers $20 USD bill?). The CFO process is mostly BS. I do agree with their mission and definitely with imparting the knowledge of what to do if abused in a foreign land, that is extremely scary. However, I do believe that a lot of the recent scrutiny of applicants is a knee jerk reaction to the guy that recently murdered his filipino wife and the Philippine government wants to look like they are doing something, even though they are mostly powerless. They do have power to help the ones that stay in the Philippines married to abusive local partners, but I doubt there is much traction there.
Anyone not familiar with the event, you can do.a search or look at this tragic news post:
https://people.com/husband-allegedly-murdered-wife-days-after-came-overseas-meet-8774622#:~:text=Newlywed Wife Is Allegedly Stabbed,psychiatric hospital following his arrest.
CFO could have maybe prevented her from dying by refusing to let her leave the country after seeing that he had arrests in his home country. However, seeing what he's capable of, why couldn't he just beat and stab her in the Philippines? He can! So the CFO is powerless whether they let her go or whether she stays. It's way easier to get away with Murder in the Philippines than it is to get away with it in Europe.
Again, you are 100% correct, they have the authority, we have to play their game.