Perhaps the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Migrant Workers headed by Secretary Enrique Manalo and Secretary Hans Cacdac respectively should look into a Foreign Service Circular (No. 221-86) requiring all foreign service personnel to assist any Filipino national, especially OFWs in need of help in a foreign country.
Under the said circular, these personnel are required to submit a weekly report on Filipinos facing court charges and how they had been assisted by these foreign service personnel. They are also required to visit their countrymen who end up in jail, and see to it they were given adequate legal assistance.
The labor attaches are required to be on call at all times to serve OFWs in trouble and make regular reports of their activities to the DFA.
This circular was completely ignored when the late DFA Secretary Salvador ‘Doy’ Laurel was canned by the Cory Aquino administration. The foreign secretaries who followed had a sorry history of ignoring our workers.
Today, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. would do well to order the DFA to resuscitate that Laurel circular and require strict compliance with it by all DFA personnel henceforth.
In asking for the revival of such circular, Marcos could also order all chiefs of mission and other diplomatic officers to ditch a common practice among many DFA staffers of looking down, many times with disdain, on our OFWs who run to them for help.
Most of these “diplomats” are more obsessed with rubbing elbows with officials of countries they are assigned to and other diplomatic corps members, than spending time helping our OFWs. And if they ever help at all, this would be at a minimum and mostly delegated to low-ranking consular staffers who are anyway also prejudiced against OFWs, in pretty much the same as their superiors are.
Marcos should order ambassadors and other chiefs of mission to personally attend to the plight of our OFWs under pain of separation from the service if they fail or refuse to do so. The President could order presidential monitors to report on the activities of our foreign service people and blacklist those found wanting in their assistance to our OFWs.
The DFA has embassy inspectors of its own who are supposed to monitor our embassies abroad. Why have their mouths been shut for so long?
As a suggestion, all heads of diplomatic missions abroad should be lawyers or at least have a lawyer in their office to immediately assure legal assistance to OFWs.
There are too many OFWs facing criminal prosecutions, and since they have no sufficient knowledge of the law, including customs and traditions of their country of employment since cultures of the world vary and are diverse. Hence, many lose court cases they face.
When a Filipino abroad is investigated, a Filipino lawyer must assist the lawyer assigned by the foreign government. This will ensure that OFWs are not denied due process.
You can’t really put a good man down
I came across yet another Facebook post about the need for President Marcos Jr. to apologize on behalf of his father for the declaration of Martial Law in the country.
But should certain individuals insist on the matter, then why not demand the same from JPE as well? He is alive at 100.
But the bottomline is why apologize? For what? Martial Law is Constitutional and is only deleterious if you are an enemy of the state. Perhaps it is simply because of their abhorrence of the Marcoses?
But even PBBM’s former Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez is hinting that President Marcos Jr. may go the same way as his father, alluding to the events of 1986.
This “dictatorship” nonsense is way too funny. Marcos Jr. is the antithesis of a dictator. He is tolerant of other beliefs that do not jive with his very own, as he is respectful of the opinions of others.
Nevertheless, he also expects to be given the same kind of respect when faced with an opposing belief and can and will stick to it firmly. They take cheap shots at BBM – shots whose origins are from the belief and personal agendas that have nothing to do with his own.
They are ever so present today in social media where they even throw ad hominem attacks on the physical features of their targets at the expense of a worthy argument.
However, BBM’s consistency, sincerity and platform of government are the reasons why he continues to gain support nationwide, what with his frequent visits to the people, to both the young and the old – to groups that continue to support him as he governs and performs his given tasks as President of the Filipino people.
-o0o-
Random Memorandum: FM was 55 when he declared Martial Law in the country in 1972, while JPE was 48.
-o0o-
Factoid: The word ‘guerilla’ (from the Spanish word ‘guerra’ meaning ‘war’) was first used to describe the Spanish-Portuguese irregulars, or ‘guerilleros’ who helped the Duke of Wellington drive the French from the Iberian Peninsula during the campaigns of 1809-1813. Traditionally, guerilla warfare has been a weapon of protest against alleged wrongs imposed on a people by a foreign invader or ruling government.
-o0o-
Update: My radio program over Radyo Pilipinas 738 KHz AM ‘Leslie Bocobo Live’ with CEZA Administrator and CEO Secretary Katrina Ponce Enrile will be airing very soon and will be every Thursday 1:00-2:00 PM. It will be livestreamed via Facebook.
(Leslie Bocobo is a former Special Assistant to the Secretary at the Office of the Press Secretary, Malacanang, and a former Public Affairs Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources)
Kommentare