Ask a typical Filipino on the street what he/she thinks
about the Philippine Embassy and the first curt reply would
be that everything there is expensive and that the service
is poor. Expensive in the sense that the cost of a passport
renewal, for instance, is about double that in Hong Kong.
Poor service because the embassy personnel are “not nice.”
Certainly, that is a completely subjective evaluation.
One should be reminded, however, that Tokyo is the most
expensive city in the world and that Filipinos here avail
of our government’s services without having to pay any
income tax to the Philippine government. There is no such
thing as a free lunch. Moreover, an embassy insider informed
me that each telephone operator accepts hundreds of calls
each day. The consular services section is also inundated
daily by throngs of Filipinos. Just mentally calculate the
staff-to-client ratio and you’ll promptly realize why
the embassy personnel are allegedly “not nice.”
This month’s column is not written in defense of the
embassy, for I have always believed that the press is virtually
the Fourth Estate. The Philippine press in Japan should maintain
a healthy yet critical collaboration with the embassy and
ensure that this redounds to the benefit of our fellow Filipinos,
the so-called “Bagong Bayani” that our government
so proudly extols. What I would like to focus on is my firsthand
experience with a few embassy personnel.
This began with a Letter to the Editor in the online edition
of Philippines Today. The letter called our attention to the
alleged illegal trafficking of underage Filipinas for a certain
bar in Shizuoka Prefecture. The letter writer claimed that
two women, whom he personally knows, had entered Japan using
fake names and passports. I will not reveal the identity of
the persons concerned to protect their right to privacy. Let
me relate, however, the events that unfolded after this.
In an email, I asked the sender, whom we shall call Mr. A,
to provide more details of the case. He replied by saying
that one of the ladies is actually his girlfriend. Let’s
call her Ms. B, and her sister, Ms. C, aged 18 and 17, respectively.
Ladies B and C, as Mr. A alleged, came to Japan using fake
names, fake passports and tampered documents because of the
prompting of the girls’ very own mother. I assumed that
he wrote Philippines Today because of his concern for them,
particularly for Ms. B, whom I believed he wanted to come
home.
I wrote a formal letter to Labor Attaché Atty. Reynaldo
Regalado and OWWA Welfare Officer Josephine Sanchez-Tobia
to endorse the case. I was actually surprised at how quickly
they responded and how soon they located the concerned bar
in Shizuoka, whom Mr. A alleged was also harboring more than
15 underage Filipinas. Within a few days, they had summoned
the promoter and compelled the sisters to come to the Philippine
Embassy for an “interview.”
According to Ms. Tobia, the interview lasted for a whole
day and it was found out that only Ms. C used a fake name
and tampered documents; Ms. B’s papers were in proper
order. Because of these revelations, Ms. C was forced to pack
up and return home within just a few days. Mr. A actually
did not tell the truth when he said that both had false documents,
according to Ms. Tobia. He also did not get his wish of having
Ms. B return home. Last time I heard was that Ms. B is so
angry at him because the ladies’ mother is fuming mad
about what he had done.
On the embassy’s part, they certainly did the right
thing, and that is, to protect our women from being exploited.
After all, tampering with public documents is a criminal act.
Unknown to many, sometime in mid-June, the embassy had also
rescued a Nagasaki-based Filipina nightclub entertainer and
singer who was allegedly sexually assaulted and almost raped
by a Yakuza crime gang leader.
A mother of two, this lady had entered Japan on May 22 through
the auspices of a certain JMM Promotions. The club owner sexually
harassed the victim nearly every day from the time she arrived
and once tried to rape her, but the woman fought back. The
owner then beat her up, according to reports. Finally, the
victim sent text messages via her cellular phone to her family
back in Pampanga asking for help from the appropriate authorities.
She is now back in the Philippines.
The embassy at work is also illustrated by the efforts of
Consul General Claro S. Cristobal in bringing the absentee
voting registration process to where most Filipinos are. One
of the most down-to-earth, approachable and unassuming officials
at the embassy, ConGen Cristobal has requested that off-site
registration centers be established in Yokohama, Okinawa,
Gunma, Ibaraki, Chiba, Saitama and Hokkaido. The Osaka Consulate
General will handle registrations within its jurisdiction,
including Nagoya.
ConGen Cristobal even said that he is willing to personally
bring the biometric machines to Hokkaido and pay for his own
plane fare just to register the almost 1,000 Filipinos in
that island prefecture. As of press time, COMELEC approval
has been obtained for field registrations in Kanagawa, Chiba,
Saitama, Ibaraki and Shizuoka. Now that we have the green
light, the embassy will go to you to ensure your right to
vote in the 2004 polls, and to give you a stake in our country’s
future.
Since graduating from the University of Tsukuba in March
this year and subsequently entering the Japanese labor force,
I have become more cognizant of the role OFWs play in nation
building. The Philippine Embassy should be looked upon as
a partner, not an adversary, towards this goal.
For in the final analysis, we are all in the same boat.
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