DFA's expanding mandate will suffer under shrinking budget - Romulo

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is asking lawmakers to increase its budget for 2010 to help them fulfill their expanding mandate, notably the protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo urged the House of Representatives for an additional P828-million for its proposed budget next year. According to Romulo, the DFA's expanding mandate over the eight million Filipinos living and working abroad would fail under a shrinking budget. Although one foreign service personnel in 97 posts overseas caters to 6,678 Filipinos, the DFA will only receive 0.80 percent from the proposed P1.536-trillion national budget. "The DFA already has the least number of personnel," Romulo said Thursday during the House of Representatives budget deliberations, "Its really a lean organization." The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) proposed a slight cut from the DFA's 2009 budget of 12.5- million. For next year, the DBM wants the DFA allocated only P12.39-million. The additional P828-million would help the department acquire several properties for embassy and consular use; finance frontline ad legal assistance to OFWs; and fund upcoming international commitments, Romulo said. There are currently 65 Philippine embassies and 23 Philippine consulates in almost 100 posts all over the globe. "We make do with what we have, but we need more," Romulo said. Allies of OFWs The DFA seemed to find allies in the House of Representatives. Several lawmakers like Partylist Representatives Salvador Britanico (Banat), Walden Bello (Akbayan), Luzviminda Ilagan (Gabriela) and Leandro Montemayor (ABA-AKO) vouched support for the additional budget for the DFA. "I see the need for the additional budget," Ilagan said. "The DFA has several exemplary personnel and they need the help." The reduction in the DFA's budget may also not sit well with overseas Filipinos, who generally feel being treated as milking cows by those in government, especially when Philippine posts abroad fail to provide legal assistance to those facing death sentences due to lack of funds. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, which is host to more than a million Filipino workers, the cost of hiring a lawyer to defend a person facing a case punishable by death penalty could run to tens of thousands of riyals. With the big number of Filipinos facing criminal cases there, the DFA's Legal Fund as provided by law could be easily drained if a lawyer were to be hired by the government to represent each OFW. - GMANews.TV