DUBAI: Open a consulate. Put in 46 people to provide services to some half a million constituents. What do you have? Mission Impossible!
But that’s not the case with the Philippine Consulate General (PCG), which, running on the same number of staff and officers faced with some 1,230 distressed overseas Filipino workers in its ward (and growing fast as of last count), not to mention 50 monthly jail and about 20 hospital visits, has managed to stay abreast.
Did we also say 350 walk-in inquiries, some 900 fielded phone calls, plus an infinite number of notarizations, marriage certifications and passport renewals a month?
On top of all these are the regular town hall meetings, skills training and financial literacy seminars, and outreach consular missions to the Northern Emirates.
An imaginative mind would think the 46 staff and officers probably each have three heads conjoined to a torso and two pairs of arms, pretty much like the characters you see in Men In Black, to make things work.
But Nay. So, what makes them tick?
More engaged community
The Filipino Times asked Consul General Paul Raymund Cortes and here’s what he said: “2017 saw a more engaged community and that’s ultimately what we want to have.”
“It is not the achievement of the consulate. It is the achievement of the community working hand in hand with the consulate. The government cannot claim to be the sole repository of how things move forward. It always has to be a partnership between the people entrusted with the authority and the constituents,” Cortes said.
“It has to be two-way; that’s how democracy works. The community must be an active participant in the policy process.”
Cortes said the challenge Philippine foreign missions face is “for the people to understand that the government is here not simply to be the ‘go-to’ person for passport authentication (and what not) but for everything else.”
“Our goal is to be their rudder, their inspiration…guide.”
Activities and advocacies
The PCG has so far convened seven major town hall meetings with ranking Philippine government officials each attended by hundreds of OFWs and community leaders. Among them were those presided by acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr. in January; Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano in May; Secretary Guiling Mamondiong of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) also in May; Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad and Overseas Workers Welfare Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac in July.
Others were Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III and again, Cacdac, a few months back; Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs, Sarah Lou Arriola; and just recently Martin Andanar, who heads the Presidential Communications Operations Office; and Party List Cong. Ron Salo.
“Town hall meetings allow the people to understand the issues and what government really means,” Cortes said.
Aside from the town hall meetings, PCG also conducted culturally-centered activities like filmmaking for the young ones; the “Dubai Dubai Musikahan” songwriting competition; and the “Beyond the Block” documentary about Filipino street dance.
The PCG also threw full support behind “Lamentasyon,” a first-ever full length film with an all-OFW cast and crew that highlights the conflicts faced by Filipinos working abroad.
Among economically centered activities was the recent Dubai launch of the Entrepinoy Bios Dynamis organic rice produced by local farmers of M’lang in North Cotabato under the Philippine Overseas Labor Office’s reintegration program done through the Don Bosco Multipurpose Cooperative.
Activities that focused on advocacy were the recent Cancer Awareness Month and the Mrs. Kabayan Kapitbisig, a beauty pageant for household service workers who have left their children back home so they could prepare a better future for them by working as domestic helps abroad.
“We have had cultural events back and forth in support of the community. We have also come up with financial literacy programs, not just the ones by advocacy groups, kami mismo,” Cortes said.
He said PCG will have at least two projects every month such that the consulate “would always be in touch with the community.”
“That is the important thing,” he said.
Outreach missions
To this end, PCG has also started doing outreach missions in the Northern Emirates, among more recent ones of which was held on Oct. 27 where passport renewal processing and overseas absentee voting services were offered to the OFWs.
The activity resulted to 277 OFWs having been able to renew their passports on the said date, representing 81% of PCG’s expected turnout. The OFWs would have otherwise needed to travel to Dubai for the purpose.
Some 15% of the total turnout were those who need not secure appointment such as pregnant women, new-born babies and children below 10 years old, senior citizens, and persons with disability (PWD).
The Consulate was also able to register 228 additional overseas absentee voters bringing the total number of registered absentee voters in Dubai and the Northern Emirates to 54,555. The overseas absentee registration will end in September 2018.
The Special Consular Day was held in addition to the special passport processing days that the consulate conducts one Friday every quarter in Dubai, and to the regular consular missions in Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. The PCG also offers consular services on weekends to keep the wait time for passport appointments as short as possible. There have however been issues about OFWs booking appointments online but not actually showing up on the scheduled date puting the slots to waste.
PCG skills trainings were also being done in coordination with various groups like the Overseas Filipino Civil Engineers Association (OFCEA) which recently conducted technical training for civil engineers in the UAE, and offered skills development to distressed Filipinos currently residing in the POLO Resource Center.
