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THE
weakening of the dollar, which currently hurts families
of some 8 million Filipino migrant workers, has also
been affecting Filipino diplomats abroad, prompting a
deluge of requests to be transferred back home.
At the
same time, the shrinking value of government allowances
is also causing an exodus of diplomatic support staff
now moving to high-paying jobs in the US, Canada, United
Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.
Franklin
Ebdalin, DFA undersecretary for finance and
administration, said since the decline of the dollar in
the last two years, foreign-service officers assigned
abroad have been asking to be sent back home because
their fixed allowances, which are given in dollars,
could no longer sustain their needs.
At the
same time, Ebdalin said the DFA continues to lose its
diplomatic support staff to lucrative jobs elsewhere.
“At
least 90 percent of our support staff has moved to jobs
in various English-speaking countries as the government
could no longer afford them enough pay. There is no law
that stops them, and if we don’t give them enough, it is
not fair to ask them to stay,” said Ebdalin in an
interview.
He said
most of the support staffers are moving to international
agencies like World Bank, foreign embassies and the
United Nations.
Foreign-service officers are individuals who have passed
the DFA foreign service examinations and continue to
climb the diplomatic ladder to become full-fledged
career officers and ambassadors. Foreign-service staff
are employees assigned in Philippine diplomatic posts as
secretaries and accountants.
Undersecretary Ebdalin said the DFA has been batting for
exemption from the salary standardization law to be able
to augment the needs of the diplomatic-service officers
and staff.
But, he
said, it takes a lot of energy to make changes in the
bureaucracy.
“You
have a saying about success being 99 percent
perspiration, in our case it’s 99 percent kulit
[doggedness],” he said of the minimal increase that the
department received for the allowance of its diplomatic
and nondiplomatic personnel abroad. |
