Publisher's Note

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Page added on April 20, 2010

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Realizations

by Amy Evasco-Rellosa:

After being a resident for four years in Canada, I have realized three things:

1. Filipinos do have a short term memory (stm)- It has been said in the past that we have stm because we tend to forget about what happened in the past and make the same mistakes all over again. My recent experience during the outreach program by the Phil. Consulate of Vancouver here in Calgary confirmed that. I went to renew my passport to no avail because of the inefficiency of the organizers of the event and the people from the consulate office themselves. They were not prepared nor organized to meet our needs. My four years in Canada has taught me that I only need to follow the requirements and procedures of any undertaking and I will be able to have my needs dealt with. I went to the outreach expecting the same thing but I accomplished nothing to my dismay. I completely forgot that I should have been better prepared as I was dealing with Filipinos who were so disorganized, unsystematic and even melodramatic with their procedures.

2. Canadians care more for Filipinos than our own countrymen – The people behind the outreach program made us suffer the bitter coldness when we lined up outside of the building for days for the renewal of our passports. The Canadians who were waiting for their Filipino nannies invited us to stay inside their vans to help keep us warm. They also gave away sandwiches to the people lined up outside. Our co-Filipinos who by the way forgot to add to their requirements that we needed to bring blankets, tents, “portalets” and heaters, never cared about how we were suffering in the line up. When the crowd got weary about the lack of order in the proceedings, some very uncaring and thoughtless Filipino volunteers even threatened the crowd and said “Pumunta na lang kayo sa Vancouver” or “Pag di kayo umupo, tatawag kami ng pulis”. I felt like I was watching an FPJ movie. We were being threatened by the very same people who advertised and asked us to partake in this outreach program.

3. Our very own embassy cannot provide our simplest needs – Filipino embassies everywhere should be able to provide services that Filipinos may require. They should be our haven on every foreign land. A lot of Filipinos are here with a heavy heart because they need to provide for their family’s basic needs. Most of the people lined up are contract workers who wanted to renew their passports in order to get a longer term for the renewal of their contracts. These are the very people who send money back home so that the Filipino people may be given a chance for a decent living. They took the day off without pay just to get their renewals to no avail. Some of them even came from their night shifts and proceeded to line up the whole day only to be told to come back the following day. They had to go straight back to their jobs and were back again to line up the following day after their shifts. The crowd came back, hoping that the situation will be better on the second day of the processing. Lo and behold, everything was the same that day except that there were already four lines: One for the people who were given tickets the day before and were just paying their processing fee, another one for those with tickets but are still submitting their documents, a third one for the newcomers and a fourth which catered to people who were excused from the long line ups because they had reasons valid enough for the outreach volunteers to consider. My family and I had to give up in the early afternoon of that second day because the situation was only getting worse. We lost hope when we realized that the organizers were not keeping their promise that those with tickets will be able to proceed without any further hassles of lining up and there was clearly no effort on their part to come up with a system that would benefit both parties. As they said, no other plans for the long line up as they have announced that their policy was “First come, first serve basis” and there should be no hurt feelings!!! Otherwise—“pumunta na lang kayo sa Vancouver” !!!

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