Friends, ladies and gentlemen,
The DFA faces many challenges. We shall fully implement the foreign policies shaped by no less than the chief executive of the land. We shall support with vigor the projects and priorities of this government such as tourism and information technology. We are pledged to pursue the economic and political programs of the president.
In addition, we take cognizance of the way for better service to the needs of our own people. Today there exists a daily long line of passport applicants on the ground floor of the DFA. Over three thousand people apply daily for passports. They have to be processed manually. The department has capacity for processing only three thousand five hundred passports a day. We?d like to increase this to at least 10,000 passports per day. When you travel abroad you probably ask your travel agents to do the paperwork for you, including lining up for the manual processing. But those who do not go through travel agencies line up for themselves. It is an ordeal. It is a needless exercise we intend to drastically reduce, if not totally eliminate. We intend to give the Filipino his due - and hope to have the passports processed within 24 hours after application.
As an initial step towards this target, we have signed a contract with a courier service provider to allow Filipinos who want to renew their passports to call a 24-hour, 7 days a week - toll free number, from anywhere in the Philippines to have their passports picked up from their office or residence, brought to the DFA for renewal, then delivered back their renewed passport to them - all within 7 working days. Many may still want to line up for their passport renewal. And the regular processing mechanisms will remain available for them, but we estimate that it will reduce the long line by 40% at present you can download passport application forms from www.dfa.gov.ph .
Second, we intend to improve the security of all Philippine passports. This new program consists of the machine readable passport/visa (MRPV) project. With the implementation of this mechanism, we expect to have Philippine passports processed within 24 hours, this means that it would take about 3 days to have the passport application filed, processed and released. NEDA has evaluated this project. It will not cost the government a single centavo for equipment and training of personnel, but it will resolve much of the delay and uncertainties of passport issuances. When this project is implemented by the end of the year, we expect the long lines to have dwindled because we can issue passports within 24 hours after application.
My friends, we intend to serve the Filipino here and abroad. There are today more than 8 million of our countrymen who live abroad, many of them in quest of employment and livelihood for a better life.
Our foreign policy embodies compassionate concern over their conditions. Most of these Filipinos have gainful employment abroad. Some do not. It is the duty of the government - within its humble and limited means to show genuine concern for their safety. Governments must not evade responsibility in protecting our professional migrants in foreign lands from human right violations or criminal acts foisted upon them. They generate more than 10 billion dollars annually into the national economy. They help us and we in turn should help them.
As a matter of law and formal policy we protect Filipino citizens in foreign countries. It is the mission of our diplomatic representatives abroad, but this vital matter of protection and welfare have become more acute, more demanding in view of the expansion of Filipino communities abroad.
This has strained our diplomatic resources to the limit. Our foreign policy must now aim to develop a mechanism which can infuse self-empowerment into Filipino communities working and living in foreign countries, to supplement the limited means by which our diplomatic missions can avail of protection for them.
We are working out a policy framework by which Filipinos working abroad can be encouraged to consolidate a strong sense of community spirit for empowerment toward their own protection and welfare, and as communities abroad they can develop the means to maintain communication linkages with our office. And we in turn can link contacts with their families here. Filipino communities abroad will receive guidelines for developing welfare and cultural programs. We look forward to convoking an international conference of Filipino communities abroad in which, in the presence of no less than the president, they can have a forum for policy approaches for their own protection and welfare.
This policy framework is addressed in the wake of the reality that millions of our compatriots live and work abroad under different cultural and political environments. We face divided national communities - with all implications and consequences that arise from such diversities. Hence, this foreign policy objective has in mind the greater cause of keeping our social solidarity in good shape despite geographical divisions.
Eventually our countrymen's voices can transform into votes thru legislation - with representation anew in the halls of congress.
We do this as a tentative measure - until the day when our economy shall have prospered and the nation rebuilt - when we can bring back the migrant Filipinos to work here instead of abroad, when we can tap his talents such as those of doctors, nurses, computer experts or highly skilled mechanics to share our destinies again in this land many can still call Pearl of the Orient.
I believe in the Filipino. I have faith in his wisdom. I trust in his capacity to overcome the challenges he faces. For now - let us fight for the Filipino here. Let us fight for the Filipino abroad. Let us fight for what is our own. |