Fans of Jessica Sanchez including millions of overseas Filipinos, can heave a sigh of relief, at least up to next week, as she enters the elite circle of the three remaining contestants in American Idol.

WIth more than 70 million votes, the three contestants: Joshua Ledet (20), Phillip Phillipps (21), and Jessica Sanchez (16) are already assured of worldwide acclaim and recognition.

Out the door goes 17-year old Texan aspirant Hollie Cavanagh, a week before the Am Idol bets go back to their respective hometowns.

What’s in store for Jessica next week? Hopefully, fans of Hollie will shift their votes to Jessica as the only girl left in the race. The hometown visits would also underscore Jessica’s journey as a true-to-life American dream for a talented daughter of two immigrants.

It would be hard not to be sympathetic to a daughter of an American soldier. Still, this is American Idol, and even the most sympathetic story can’t repair a botched song.

For Jessica, the challenge is song choice, song choice, song choice. She must remember her age, and find a song that more people – young and old – can relate to. Here we keep our fingers crossed that record producer Jimmy Iovine would dispense the best advice.

Style is equally important. As the only female contestant to watch, she must dress her age, and not JLo’s. No fashion advice from the dawg, Randy Jackson please!

Good luck, Jessica! We love you!

Alfred Salmos suffered serious burns, several of which have hardened into keloids, after being electrocuted at work. An electrician by profession, he was sucked into a 14,000-volts breaker that he was trying to shut down.

For the past two years, an Indonesian worker has been looking after Mang Fred. He could no longer work because of his physical condition. According to the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah, they are now working on the exit clearances of Ka Alfred who has to settle some fees over an impounded car several years ago. The Ople Center is working closely with NGOs in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia such as Patnubay Riyadh and PEBA, on this case.

For those who wish to help OFW Alfred Salmos, please send donations to his sister: Epifania Reem S. Colina c/o BPI Branch in Carmen West Rosales, Pangasinan, Account Number: 0639-0859-29.

For those who wish to get in touch with Reem Salmos Colina, please get in touch with me at the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, 833-5337/833-9562, so we can coordinate this with her.

Thank you!

Ople Center urges DFA to seek international community’s help in the rescue of Pinoy seafarer held captive in Somalia for the past 2 years

Mother’s Day may be just a week away but that fact is lost on Aurora Gonzales, mother of a Filipino seafarer who is being held hostage by Somali pirates.

Her 31-year old son, Gerald Gonzales, has been in captivity for the last two years after Somalian pirates seized Iceberg 1, a cargo shipping vessel owned by a Dubai-based company, Azal Shipping & Cargo.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a non-profit organization that assists distressed overseas Filipino workers, urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to seek the help of the international community in securing the safe release of Filipino seafarer Gerald Gonzales from Somalian pirates.

Gerald’s mother, Aurora Gonzales, flew to Manila from Jaro, Iloilo City to seek the help of the BFO Center in following up on her son’s case. The Center has requested for a meeting between the seafarer’s mother and local manning agency to be held tomorrow morning at the DFA Building.

“We urge the Department of Foreign Affairs to go the extra mile in requesting for international assistance because the shipping company concerned has not been forthcoming with answers as to extraordinary delay in the release of Gerald Gonzales,” Ople said.

The seafarer’s mother recounted that she received a phone call from Gerald at 2 a.m. on March 29, 2010. “Na-hijack kami,” he said. (“Our ship has been hijacked.”). Since then, the OFW’s family has been relying on updates from the local manning agency, Inter-World Shipping Corporation. The manning agency, in turn, has been sending e-mails to the operations manager of Azal Shipping & Cargo in Dubai to request for information.

However, the seafarer’s family is no longer content with the same terse replies provided by the shipping company. “Gerald’s mother showed us an e-mail thread filled with terse assurances from Azal Shipping & Cargo that the crewmembers are still onboard the vessel and are fine. If they are fine, then what’s holding up the negotiations? Two years is a long time to be in the hands of Somali pirates,”Ople said.

Gerald left the Philippines as an engine cadet on April 7, 2009. It was his first contract as a seafarer. The family has not received any allotment from the Dubai-based shipping company since the seafarer was held captive. Gerald is the only Filipino onboard Iceberg 1. Other Filipino crewmembers went home prior to the hostage-taking incident since their contracts have ended.

Gerald Gonzales boarded a shipping cargo vessel named Iceberg 1 on April 7, 2009. The ship is owned by a Dubai-based company called Azal Shipping & Cargo. Gerald’s manning agency in Manila is Inter-World Shipping Corporation.

On March 29, 2010 at around 2 a.m., Nanay Aurora received a frantic phone call from Gerald. “We’ve been hijacked!” Stunned, the mother was left with a million questions and a phone line that went dead.

Two years have passed and Gerald has yet to make it home. Nanay Aurora and her husband are based in Jaro, Iloilo City. She would dutifully follow up her son’s case with the DFA Regional Office and Inter-World Shipping Company. Her inquiries were met with a standard reply: Azal Shipping is still negotiating with the Somali pirates.

Gerald is the only Filipino left on board Iceberg 1. Her mother is worried about his physical health and conditions. Click on the link below to hear Nanay Aurora’s appeal:

Nanay Aurora’s Appeal

Let us support Nanay Aurora in her family’s lonely battle to bring Gerald home.

Here’s how you can help –

1. Send an e-mail to the following offices to express concern over Gerald’s plight and seek immediate action to secure this seafarer’s freedom:

Department of Foreign Affairs — oumwa@dfa.gov.ph

Inter-World Shipping Corporation — info@inter-worldshippingcorp.com

Azal Shipping & Cargo — azalsc@eim.ae

2. Include Gerald in your prayers. He is just 31 years old and this is his first stint as a seafarer. In one of his SMS to Nanay Aurora, he complained of hunger. That text was sent last year. She has yet to receive any new messages from Gerald since.

3. Share this post with your friends and colleagues. The more emails we send out, the more prayers we offer, the greater chances of Gerald coming home. Pressure must be brought to bear on the shipping company, its local agent, and the DFA to successfully negotiate Gerald’s freedom. They must be made to feel that this isn’t a mother’s quest alone.

For more information about this case, or if you have any information about Iceberg 1 and/or Gerald Gonzales, please contact the Blas F. Ople Center via e-mail: blasoplecenter@hotmail.com or via our hotline: 833-5337. Thank you.

“We join the nation in mourning the tragic death of an OFW in Homs, Syria. Another hero has fallen, in a war that I’m sure she barely understood and was hardly prepared for,” Susan Ople, the head of the policy center, said.

Ople said that the tragic death of a Filipino domestic worker while fleeing Homs, Syria with her employer’s family underscores the need for the Aquino administration to give full priority and attention to the fast-developing humanitarian crisis in Syria. This would be the second case of an OFW who died in Syria. The first case involved a worker who was about to be repatriated from Damascus to Manila. She died due to renal failure while in a wheelchair waiting for immigration clearance.

“We respect and believe in the sincerity of our embassy and DFA personnel who are in the frontlines in Syria. It is also for their benefit that the Ople Center now seeks an impartial and independent assessment of the government’s ongoing rescue and repatriation efforts through a congressional inquiry,” Ople said.

A legislative inquiry will help ascertain whether all actions are fully coordinated, and that the best teams and all necessary resources are in place in Syria.

The OFW advocate recommended that a team composed of the most battle-tested labor and welfare attaches, social welfare attaches as well as consular officers be dispatched to Syria. The Ople Center also recommended that the Commission on Appointments take up the nomination of Ambassador-designate Nestor Padalhin so that he could immediately head the Philippine Embassy in Damascus.

She also recommended that the DFA and OWWA make full use of social media sites and broadcast stations to relay information to OFWs in Syria through their families here at home.

“Unlike Libya, our workers scattered across Syria do not know where the rescue teams are, and who are the community leaders or teams that they could reach out to. In quiet desperation, some of our workers have started planning their own escape routes which sadly puts them in extreme danger,” she added.

The policy center cited the case of OFWs Maricel Monteclaro and Sherly Antig who recently jumped from their building in order to escape from their employers in Lattakia. Both OFWs have been calling up the Philippine Embassy and asking for repatriation assistance because of oppressive work conditions and fear arising from sporadic sounds of gunfire near their building.

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the employer of Maricel and Sherly is one of the wealthiest businessmen in Lattakia. Another OFW, Ruth Martinez, a co-worker of Maricel and Sherly, affirmed this information. Ruth Martinez came home on September 29, 2011 after an altercation with the said employer led to her repatriation.

“Our Syrian employer is very strict and also very powerful. He would promise the embassy and his domestic helpers that he would allow us to come home, but he doesn’t fulfill his promises,” Ruth said, adding that this may be the reason the two OFWs decided to escape.

Ople said she received an urgent text message from Maricel Monteclaro the other day saying that they jumped off the building and one of them was hurt. She requested the Ople Center to notify the Philippine Embassy about their situation. The former labor undersecretary was able to convey the information to OUMWA executive director Eric Endaya who is based in Damascus, Syria who in turn promised to send two embassy personnel to assist the two OFWs.

The Ople Center also called on the Philippine Embassy in Syria and the Department of Foreign Affairs to help Jacqueline Salas who has been seeking repatriation assistance since January. Jacqueline works as a domestic worker in Lattakia, Syria. She recently called her husband to reiterate her request for repatriation because of rising tensions and sporadic gunfire near her employer’s residence. Another OFW based in Damascus, Ivy Samson Escorpiso, has been seeking repatriation since December 15, 2011. According to the DFA, her case is still under negotiation.

The NGO noted that 6 other OFW cases seeking repatriation from Syria which was reported by the NGO during its first dialogue with the DFA on August 25, 2011 remains pending. “Once the employer confiscates the cellphone of the domestic worker, we lose track of where she is and how she is faring. Their mobile phones are lifelines that could be cut anytime by Syrian employers.”

The Ople Center said that the families of these OFWs are extremely worried and would often call up the NGO for updates. “All we could tell them is that the cases of their loved ones are still under negotiation based on information coming from the DFA. For how much and for how long, we have absolutely no idea. Then we ask them to keep praying and not lose hope. I really wish we could do more than that.”

Philippine Ambassador to Singapore Minda Cruz invited me to the embassy’s regular dialogue with Filipino community leaders at the Bayanihan Center. There, I met Ramer Ortega, who heads the fast-growing group of IT professionals working there. I also met representatives of private sector companies from real estate firms to insurance companies that have set up offices in the island state in a bid to capture a share of the OFW market. Vista Land Managing Director Patricia Clemente, Maria Cielo Tradio of Prudential Assurance Company Singapore and Irene Curtis, Associate Editor, of OFW Pinoy Star participated during that meeting.

The agenda was extensive. The good ambassador gave updates about the “Sendong” relief operations, more hands are needed to pack items in “balikbayan” boxes she said. Vice-Consul Jed Llona advised the leaders about the Office of the President’s stern warning against drug mules. An advisory was read and Ambassador Cruz reiterated the harsh penalties that await those bringing in drugs to Singapore.

It was an occasion for me to introduce the work of the Blas F. Ople Center, a non-profit organization that I head, to the Filipino community. After the presentation, I was pleased to receive calling cards from new friends who wished to volunteer for the Center. One of those who approached me was a former staff of Senator Loren Legarda who now publishes the Bagong Bayani Magazine in Singapore. MJ Salomon moved to Singapore several years ago and is now one of its permanent residents.

There are nearly 200,000 Filipinos in Singapore, mostly professionals. The number of Filipino women going to Singapore illegally has dropped tremendously, and Consul Neal Imperial attributed this positive development to the work of the Bureau of Immigration. After the dialogue, Ambassador Cruz invited our small party that included Fort Jose, my friend Donna, and my former DoLE staff Millet Jose who also now works for the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Singapore, for a quick lunch at Wee Nam Kee. I loved the cereal prawns and the chicken rice was absolutely delicious.

On Saturday, we attended a workshop organized and sponsored by the Singaporean Police Force for our domestic workers in partnership with the Philippine Embassy.

Indeed, as Ambassador Cruz pointed out in her remarks, the Filipina domestic worker is the last to turn off the lights; to check on the children; and to make sure that the dwelling is secure. The workshop featured talks on fire safety, anti-dengue prevention, road safety, phone and Internet scams, and crimes usually committed by foreign workers. The Ministry of Manpower (MoM) sent it own representative who made it clear that Filipinos working in Singapore are not allowed under their laws to moonlight or take in second or third jobs. By doing so, these foreign workers face the prospect of deportation and a huge fine.

I visited the shelter of the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME) founded by the acclaimed 2011 Anti-Trafficking Hero Bridget Tan. Together with Vice-Consul Jed and Millet Jose, we were able to talk to a Filipina trafficked victim whose hair was chopped off by her female employer. She was very sad and still in a fragile state. Her employer used a cane to beat her up and even taught her kids to kick their maid. Thankfully, she has been encouraged to pursue a case, which is now under police and MoM jurisdiction. HOME and the Ople Center have forged a partnership to work on trafficking cases including that of this trafficked survivor.

Filipinos new to Singapore must understand the laws in this island state and realize that these laws actually enforced. Eric Canlas, one of the avid listeners of DZXL’s Bantay-OFW, are among Filipino professionals who have made Singapore their second home. Eric’s company designs and builds several of Singapore’s landmark edifices. He said that rules in Singapore are tough but transparent.

I asked my friend, Donna, what it feels like to be an OFW in Singapore. She said that the cost of living is high. Still, her pay is much higher and her job does keep her busy. She longs to be home, yet when she’s home, the frustration is there over traffic standstills, inept services, and a quality of life that one simply settles for.

My partnership with HOME and the information and anecdotes shared with Assistant Labor Attache Liza Mendizabal, Welfare Officer Eleanor Alimanza and Marissa de Guzman, Nanay Encar, Leo and Louie, among so many others, made this trip worthwhile. I only wish for more funds and a bigger space for the Philippine Embassy. They are doing such a good job for our OFWs. (Send your comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com)

Any decision, therefore, to close down an embassy or consulate abroad can never be just a housekeeping, cost-cutting decision. It manifests the physical withdrawal or whittling down of diplomatic interest and kinship, and in this complex world where countries are so interconnected, absence does not necessarily makes the heart grow fonder. It also leaves Filipino workers even more isolated from their government, orphaned by the lack of services that only a full-fledged foreign post can provide.

The DFA said that the decision to rationalize the number of embassies and consulates was arrived at during the 2012 budget deliberations particularly in the Senate. Unfortunately, the last ones to know are the very constituency that these foreign posts were supposed to serve – our OFWs.

According to news reports, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said that six posts are slated for closure in the early part of 2012 and another six posts for 2013. This timetable, he added, could even be accelerated so that all 12 posts can be closed down before the year ends.

Why consider embassy closures at all? Senate finance committee chairman and Liberal Party stalwart Senator Franklin Drilon said these closures would enable the Philippine government to save from Php 100-million to Php 150-million. During the budget deliberations, he recalled having visited a Philippine embassy that was no bigger than a room. He also lamented seeing talented career officials languishing in countries where our national interest is barely served. My belief is that foreign posts that service less than 5,000 Filipinos and with hardly any bilateral trade can be downsized. Embassy closures should be the last resort, to be done as a political statement instead of a fiscal one.

Compared to other countries, our diplomatic reach is not that expansive. The Philippines has 66 embassies, 23 consulates and 4 diplomatic missions. Considering that 10% of the Philippine population is outside the country, the argument should be for the creation of more foreign posts rather than the elimination of a dozen of them. In fact, government spending on OFW programs and services underwhelms considering the consistent dollar remittances of our workers.

According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, money sent home by our OFWs hit $1.8 billion last December pushing the 2011 remittance tally to a record-breaking $20.117 billion!

Surely, such enormous financial contributions represent an economic tide that lifts almost all commercial establishments? Why then obliterate the only concrete and productive source of public service that these OFWs would have and are actually entitled to?

The foreign posts reportedly slated for closure in 2012 are embassies in Venezuela, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Finland; consulate-generals in Barcelona, Frankfurt, Saipan and Palau. For now, the DFA is constrained to release official information, not until all host governments have been duly informed. What about our workers? Shall they, as the song goes, be the last to know?

In Barcelona, Spain, the overseas workers are up in arms after learning from Philippine Ambassador Carlos Salinas that they would have to travel 600 kilometers to the Philippine Embassy in Madrid for consular and other services. The Philippine Consulate in Barcelona, manned by less than 10 people servicing around 25,000 OFWs, shall be closed down by July.

This sad fate also confronts nearly 10,000 OFWs in Saipan. Consul-General Medardo Macaraig shared the bad news with Filipino community leaders during a recent press briefing held at the consulate. He said that the responsibilities of the consulate would soon be transferred to the Philippine Consulate-General in Agana, Guam. The OFWs in Saipan were surprised at the DFA’s decision to close down the consulate.

Governor Benigno Fitial of Saipan said that this decision is unwise in light of immigration reforms in the said US territory that affect thousands of Filipino workers. “This is a period when Filipino workers constantly seek the assistance of the Philippine Consulate in order to ensure that they are in compliance with new requirements brought about by the federalization of immigration,” the governor noted. With the closure of the Philippine Consulate in Saipan, Filipinos there would also be deprived of free training programs and consular services offered on a regular basis by the diplomatic staff and its community partners.

With the impending closure of the embassy in Dublin, over 20,000 OFWs there would have to travel all the way to London just to avail of embassy services. In short, the government would be cutting its costs by passing on the financial burden to our modern-day heroes.

Our OFWs are appealing to the DFA, the Senate, and the Office of the President to reconsider its decision which was arrived at without prior public consultations. Rather than cut down entirely, why not just downsize? Now, is this really too much to ask? (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople.)

My wish is to grow old as gracefully and beautifully as my mom. She’s my namesake and at 80-ish years, her posture is straight, her gaze is steady, and her language is crisp. Her sense of hearing may not be as sharp but given the political noise all around, maybe that’s not such a great loss. Next to her, I have always been a Gloria Romero fan. I wish they’d make more movies and telenovelas with her as a matriarch or even as a merry widow!

When I see young women in full bloom strutting in skinny jeans and fitted blouses, I’d say to myself, “I had that before.” Or on television, I’d watch women playing volleyball or tennis, and think aloud, “I did that before.” In quiet, intimate conversations with my beautiful daughter, Estelle, she’d share some of her concerns and a tiny voice within me would whisper,” Hmm, I think I also said that before.” Age is the defining line between before and after.

The good thing about turning fifty is that there is so much to look back on, wistfully, gleefully, and sometimes regretfully. That every year before 2012 led me to “50” is a blessing and never a curse. From the Beatles to the Bieber, I’ve known music that comprises the soundtracks of my life. From sleeping in rollers to hours of hair rebonding, my hair has gone through several evolutions of style, technology plus chemistry. And there’s motherhood! Ah the joys of it, and the endless worries, that goes with it! My daughter is 26 years old and I still worry about her, and I can tell that she worries about me a lot too.

So what sage advice can I give my younger readers now that I’m fifty? Bear with me as I list some of them down.

1. True friends are like socks. They keep you warm and protect you from blisters and splinters – mundane things that stop you in your tracks. The best friends are the socks that you keep in the top drawer; easier to get to when needed. To use another metaphor, your true and best friends are the ones you immediately think of texting once something unusual comes up.
2. Don’t take yourself seriously, because you’re never as good as you think you are anyway! Seriously! Even when you are on top of your game or a specialist in your field, there will always be off days. Your imperfections make you authentic and even likeable as a person. My take on the world is that there really are no specialists, only “specialists-in-the-making.”

3. It’s all about family. When my father died, my siblings and I lost an anchor, and my mother had to shepherd us all over again, just like when we were growing up and my dad was so busy with government work. Today, I can honestly say that my family is my anchor, and they know me better than my closest friends. As we grow older in life, we tend to do away with the distractions of being socially needy or trendy. The nights are shorter, our waking hours are longer, and the need to save more overpowers the desire to spend on needless things. My father lived a frugal life. I see now that it was more about necessity than choice. When one strikes fifty, the second chapter begins and no one but the Lord above knows how long or short that chapter would be. What remains is a family holding on to your book of memories, recalling lines, photos, and chapters from it particularly on birthdays and the 1st of November.

Everyday, from Monday to Friday, I host a radio show with Buddy Oberas over at DZXL (www.rmnnews.com/tv) from 10 am to 12 noon. I enjoy myself tremendously because though a public service program, my co-anchor Buddy, knows how to mix music and laughter well. We have fantasy questions every day where two winners are chosen for a modest prize of Php 50 worth of load. Our show, “Bantay OFW”, is a good tonic for me, to laugh and learn; which leads me to this last but not least morsel of advice: appreciate the gift of laughter. When I laugh, I really let go because the grace of funny moments unleash zaps of energy that keeps us young. Be thrifty but not when it comes to laughing. Don’t be stingy with smiles, either!

So now I’m a week older than fifty, and the road ahead looks a bit more blurry to me but nonetheless just as exciting. I wish all my kind readers more good days ahead as you write your own chapters in life. God bless! (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Join me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople.)

During that historic impeachment trial, quite a few people couldn’t understand my father’s decision to clam up whenever the case was being publicly discussed. Not once did he let his family in on the juicier behind-the-scenes stories that were shared without attribution by those in the know. Had he been alive today, and knowing the statesman that he was, my father would undoubtedly still be in listening mode, shunning media interviews but learning and studying all the issues by himself.

Two days ago, my father’s 85th birthday came and went. Friends and family members gathered by his grave at the Libingan ng mga Bayani to hear mass and also to share a modest breakfast. His beloved province of Bulacan continues to honor his memory with an annual holiday on his birthday. These momentous gestures of love and respect remind me about how abundant service to God and country would always be remembered, if not by all, then at least by those able to apprecaite the past.

Blas Fajardo Ople was a college dropout, and had worked as a stevedore at the North Harbor. He also earned a living as a deskman and writer. Like most newsmen in his time, my dad drank a lot and smoked a lot particularly in the prime years of his life. Always starved for knowledge, he feasted on books and all kinds of publications. He was a nationalist and a champion of labor rights. Though he may have been rough around the edges, his intellect was vast, deep, and therefore smooth and authentic. His life is the Filipino dream. Ka Blas converted every public office into a classroom, which was ironic because he had no diploma on his wall.

In his own words, then Senate President Ople tells us in a commencement speech delivered on March 26, 2000 at Fortress College, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, 8 secrets to his success:

“The first key to success, worldy or otherwise, is to set a goal for one’s self. Most of mankind get born and die without ever knowing what they really want.”

“The second key is to develop a positive outlook in life. Problems are often opportunities in disguise. As someone has said, pessimism is just a state of mind but optimism is a strategy for living.”

“The third key is to develop an active, rather than a passive, view of one’s environment. Successful men do not merely wait for things to happen to them. They take initiatives. They try to make things happen. They create their own challenges and opportunities.”

“The fourth key is to stand by one’s principles when life’s crises must be faced. The test of character, in the phrase of William James, is not in choosing the path of least resistance. This merely means that most times, the harder choice is the correct one.”

“The fifth key is to be absolutely dependable and trustworthy, so that your own colleagues know they can trust your integrity even in the most difficult moments. The trust of colleagues and subordinates is what can propel you to success.”

“The sixth key is a commitment to continuing personal and professional growth. Most people stop growing after leaving school. Education is for life.”

“The seventh and last key is to live a frugal and disciplined life, shunning all forms of waste, whether of time, talent, money or other resources. Life itself is a finite and most precious gift, and wasting it through frivolity and self-indulgence must be offensive to the giver of life.”

“Unfortunately or not, the advice will mean nothing until the principles of success are internalized in the convictions of a young man or woman setting out on that all-important journey. He or she will have to weigh the counsels of fear and hope contending inside the heart. In the end, we are most answerable to ourselves and not to any jury. And that is the eighth key to success. To thine own self be true.”

You probably can tell that my greatest hero is and will always be my father. I hear his voice in the pieces that he wrote, and feel his touch in the imprint of so many shared memories between father and daugther. I miss him terribly and that feeling of loss shall never wane.

May every OFW that the Blas F. Ople Center helps from hereon represent a flower planted in my father’s garden of memories. Belated happy birthday, Amang! (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople. Visit www.susanople.com)

The president of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a non-profit organization that specializes on migration issues, noted that Filipinos in Barcelona have organized a Facebook account with over 4,000 members to ventilate their misgivings over the DFA’s order to shut down the consulate as part of its rationalization plan.

“We support the appeals of Filipinos in Barcelona for a reconsideration of government’s decision to close down the Philippine Consulate which services more than 20,000 OFWs. The consulate was opened in 2008 in response to the OFWs’ appeals precisely because it was too inconvenient and expensive for them to travel all the way to Madrid for consular assistance,” Ople pointed out.

The former labor undersecretary said the Philippine Consulate in Barcelona also caters to Filipino seafarers whose ships dock at its major ports. This concern was echoed by Filipino community leader Ritzie Ann Taruna who wrote: “Ships, manned mostly by Filipino seafarers who have urgent consular needs, often dock in the international ports of Barcelona and Tarragona.”

Ople pointed out that the limited time of seafarers while the ship is on dock prohibits them from going all the way to Madrid, Spain to visit the Philippine Embassy which is 600 kilometers away from Barcelona.

In a resolution, the United Bicolanos of Barcelona also expressed a unified stand against the closure of the Philippine Consulate General. Victoria Madarieta, president of UBB, noted that the Consulate General started its operations only in March 2008 but has been a big help to communities in Barcelona, Andorra, and the Balearic islands. Even if honorary consuls are to be designated by the Philippine government, the number of Filipino families in these areas would be greatly deprived of consular assistance and services.

Over 4,000 OFWs have signed on to protest the Philippine government’s decision to close down the consulate in Barcelona via Facebook. The “No to Closure of Philippine Consulate in Barcelona. Yes to public service!” was created on Facebook by Filipino journalist Daniel Infante Tuano who writes for the Ang Bagong Filipino, a local paper for OFWs in Spain.

“The general sentiment is that while financial realignments may be called for within the DFA, it shouldn’t be at the expense of Filipinos overseas who are in dire need of consular services. We hope that the DFA will undertake more consultations with community leaders and OFW stakeholders prior to recommending the closure of embassies and consulates for cost-cutting purposes,” the Ople Center said.