Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh took strong exception to various allegations made by a contract worker on her Facebook page.

Carla Chris B. Davis, an OFW from Buraidah, accused in her Facebook, among other things, that the personnel of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, particularly those assigned to passport encoding, "have been remised in their duties as government employees".

The embassy strongly denied these "baseless allegations", saying its personnel have always been committed to serve its clients with professionalism, dedication and hard work.

This can readily be proven by its consistent "excellent" rating given by its clients in the daily, monthly and yearly Client Feedback reports, the embassy said in a statement emailed to Saudi Gazette.

"It may be recalled that on Dec. 14, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte declared under Memorandum Circular 37, dated Dec. 13, 2017, the suspension of government work on Dec. 26, 2017, and Jan. 2, 2018. In compliance with the president's instruction, the embassy had to cancel work on the said dates. As a result of the cancellation, the passport clients of the embassy who had previously secured passport appointments on Jan. 2 were notified that they shall be accommodated on Jan. 3 and 4. Hence there was a slight increase in the number of clients on the said dates," the statement said.

Aside from these dates being the first working days of 2018, the embassy has likewise launched the updated e-Passport System, which provides the new Philippine Passport with a 10-year validity period, it added.

The encoding of information took a bit more time than usual in view of the updated system. The embassy personnel, albeit operating with a skeletal force, continued to perform its functions to serve the public and finished its tasks despite these challenges, which are temporary in nature, said the statement.

The embassy claimed that the incident was an isolated one and did not reflect its overall performance. Notably, the Facebook post did not show nor mention that all passport applications on Jan. 4, 2018 were acted upon and processed.

Additional encoders were deployed to expedite the process, it said.

The embassy personnel dutifully finished all passport transactions on the said date, the statement said.

"In the interest of truth and fairness, the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh respectfully asks our kababayans to refrain from jumping into conclusions that only serve to muddle the factual setting of the incident. The embassy reassures our community of its commitment to serve our people with utmost dedication," the embassy added.