THE Philippine Consulate General on Guam may provide consular services for Filipinos in the CNMI by next month, Consul General Patrick John U. Hilado said in response to an email inquiry from Variety.
The conduct of regular consular outreach missions to the CNMI is a major priority of the Philippine Consulate General on Guam, he added.
“We were able to service around 5,000 clients during our two consular services outreaches in 2021,” he said. “We intend to increase the frequency of these services in 2022.”
Hilado said they were supposed to provide consular outreach services in the CNMI in January 2022, but the ongoing increase in the number of Covid-19 cases on both Guam and Saipan, and the resulting quarantine restrictions have prevented the consulate from pushing through with its plan.
“However, we are hoping that as the cases of Covid-19 begin to subside again, we can schedule one, possibly sometime next month. We will issue the necessary announcements regarding this as soon as we can finalize the arrangements for the outreach,” he said.
Hilado said the Philippine Consulate General on Guam and the Philippine Labor Office in Washington, D.C. “remain fully committed to ensure that Filipinos in the CNMI are able to continue accessing consular and labor-related services from the consulate general and the labor office.”
Still needed
CNMI resident Ed Guinto Jr. said Philippine consular services are still very much needed in the Commonwealth which hosts thousands of Filipino contract workers, Filipino citizens who are U.S. permanent residents, and Filipino-Americans.
“We all know the responsibility of the consulate: passports, birth certificates, provide legal advice, help Filipino citizens get proper information when traveling, among other things. The consulate also helps workers obtain official documents and assist those who were mistreated or abused by their employers,” Guinto added.
Sandra Romero, Bicol Association member, said with the passing of honorary consul Glicerio “Eli” Arago late last year and the closure of the honorary consulate on Saipan, “it has been more difficult for Filipino workers to obtain certain official documents.”
Romero added, “Currently, employers hiring Filipino employees authenticate documents through the Attorney General’s Office which is an additional hardship as each document that needs to be authenticated costs $50.”
In a letter to Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. dated Jan. 25, 2022, United Filipino Organization president Marcelo “Mar” Masilungan requested the re-opening of the Philippine Consulate General on Saipan.
“With the growing population of Filipinos here in the CNMI, especially with all the anticipated federal grants to fund resiliency projects on island, there is a need for Filipino contract workers,” Masilungan said.
ASAP
On behalf of the Filipino community of Saipan and as UFO president, he is asking the Philippine government to re-open its consulate office on Saipan “as soon as possible to better provide services to the growing Filipino community in the CNMI,” Masilungan added.
In November 2020, he sent a similar letter to the Office of the Philippine President requesting consular services “for our kababayans [compatriots] in need of passport renewal” at a time when the Philippine Consulate General on Guam was unable to provide services to the CNMI due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
“We have more than 3,000 applicants for passport renewal alone at that time,” Masilungan said. He noted that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services may deny the renewal of a Filipino worker’s CW or work permit due to an expired passport.
The Philippine consulate on Saipan, which opened in 1989, was among the diplomatic posts that were shut down by the Philippine government in 2012 due to budgetary constraints.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were an estimated 30,000 Filipinos residing or working in the CNMI. That number has dropped to about 9,000 today.
Patrick John U. Hilado
