Fetalvero: Good governance

THE local or the Regional Consular Office (RCO) of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) will soon engage the services of call centers in scheduling appointments with its office. The move aims to eliminate the long lines of applicants.

DFA officer-in-charge Elias Balawag said he will also recommend 10 additional encoders in order to speed up the processing of applicants that averages 380 daily. At present, the office that is supposed to be an income-generating government agency is under-manned, considering that it has only eight regular and 11 casual employees. In fact, Balawag added, some of the encoders are on-the-job trainees.

The local office of the DFA, which is located at the Pacific Mall-Super Metro in Mandaue City, earns almost a million a day in application and renewal fees. The RCO depends on the Manila head office for its quarterly operational expenses, while the salaries and wages are done through ATM.

The DFA is just one of the several government agencies operating in a very low budget thus, sacrificing efficient and quick processing of transactions.

Everything else considered, had the Philippine Commission of Good Governance (PCGG) been uncompromising in dealing with the seized jewelry of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, would our country be in a pathetic state financially?

It is almost 30 years since the Marcoses fled to Hawaii and yet the PCGG is still talking about exhibiting the jewelry in a museum.

Why not facilitate the sale of these treasures so that the Philippine government could put it to good use?

Inquirer news reported that in 2006, the Sotheby’s and Christie’s international auction houses estimated the entire lot (the three collections) to be worth P15 billion. “The three collections comprise of the following: The Malacanang collection … 30 pieces that were left behind in Imelda’s closet in 1986. The Honolulu collection … 400 pieces seized by US Bureau of Customs when they fled to Hawaii. The Roumeliotes collection, named after Imelda’s Greek accomplice, who tried to spirit 60 pieces of jewelry out of the country.”