DFA admits lack of funding for regional consular offices, foreign service posts

By HANA BORDEY, GMA News The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday admitted the lack of funding for some regional consular offices (RCO) and foreign service posts (FSP), which has forced them to use the budget for other programs to continue operations. In a Senate budget hearing, Senator Imee Marcos raised her concern about the “paltry sum” allotted to RCOs in some provinces. “These were included in 2019 as additional items but they were excluded in 2022. How are they gonna survive? Are we gonna close them or can they carry on somehow?” she asked. “We’re a bit worried, these RCOs are a huge help to our probinsyanos and we’re really worried that they’ll have to shut down because in 2019 nabigyan yan ng pera [they were given funds]. 2022, axed out na naman, paano ba yun [what can we do about it]?” she added. DFA Undersecretary Brigido Dulay said they had to “cannibalize” their funds for other programs and realign them to the RCOs. “Some of them we have already opened using our existing budget just to operate and for others—because this requires the approval of the Office of the President, it’s already with the OP—but you’re right, that unless we get the continuing funds for this, we will have to cannibalize basically our own funds to realign it to make this consular offices operate,” he said. “It is the most effective manner really—our consular offices—to serve our Filipinos for consular services so we direly need the funds for that particular purpose,” he underscored. Marcos said this is “alarming” and told the DFA that Congress may allocate funds for it if the budget for its operations does not require a huge amount of money. The lawmaker also expressed a similar concern about the FSPs in Rabat, Barcelona, Nagoya, Melbourne, Istanbul, and other places abroad. “Is there enough money to sustain these news FSPs? Nakakahiya, kabubukas lang [we just opened these],” she said, In response, Dulay said there are funds allocated last year but these are not “completely funded.” “[These were] funded in the 2021 but incompletely. The complete allocation for those posts were not given to us,” he added. Dulay said DFA Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has been “very frugal” and insisted on getting the funding requirements from the available funds within the department. “He’s said that you know, we’ll take from our budget. So again, practically again, we’re cannibalizing our current budget to make it operate,” he said, Marcos asked the DFA to submit to the committee the updates, breakdowns, and the priority RCOs and FSPs which will need additional budget. “Alin yung maraming nag-a-apply para sa pasaporte, at yung sa FSP na mga bago, let’s pick which ones are really useful and helping Filipinos overseas,” she said. [Identify the offices where a lot of people are applying for their passports, as well as the new FSPs. Let's pick which ones are really useful and helping Filipinos overseas.] Dulay said they will submit the requested documents. At the end of the discussion, Locsin said the posts do not need to be funded “to the gills.” “Don’t forget when we look at this post, let’s see just how big is the Filipinos public it serves, just because we have a post out there doesn’t mean you have to fund it to the gills,” he said. The Senate finance subcommittee has endorsed the DFA’s proposed P21.05- billion budget for 2022 to the plenary for further deliberations. — BM, GMA News

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