iamsooz-sooziam: Sunset over Haifa by JoeHabib
Jerusalem Post: How many Filipinos are currently working here in Israel?
H.E. Petronilla Garcia: Any figure I could give you would be a wild guess. Officially, it’s about 40,000. That number, of course, doesn’t include the Filipinos that are here married to Israelis, Filipinos here on permanent residence visas, Filipinos here on friendship visas, their Filipino-Israeli children, or of course the undocumented Filipinos in the country. So, it may be more. It’s hard to say.
It’s well known that almost all of the Filipinos who work in Israel are involved in care-giving, for the elderly.
Jerusalem Post: Are you making any effort to broaden the opportunities of Filipino workers into other sectors?
H.E. Petronilla Garcia: Yes, absolutely. We have Filipino hi-tech programmers who come here. They work at a hi-tech company in Haifa. We have Filipino seamen who come here. Their ports of call are Haifa and Ashdod. We have Filipinos in the Golan. That’s a whole battalion!
We also have students in agriculture who come here to study. This involves intensive, on-the-job training and has been very successful. And we do have a few workers coming into the agricultural sector. I would like to see more in the future.
Jerusalem Post: What do you see as your major accomplishments here in Israel?
H.E. Petronilla Garcia: I’m happy that the “Open Doors” monument in Rishon Lezion was constructed and dedicated. The dedication ceremony on June 21, 2009 was very, very moving. The project began before I arrived here, and it was the achievement of many people – the Filipino community in Israel, the Jewish community in the Philippines, Holocaust survivors – all working together to create this memorial. I feel very fortunate that it materialized and was completed during my watch.
In March last year, I took the initiative of hosting a dinner with the president of Israel. And that for me was wonderful – all the Asian ambassadors were there.
Israelis are very casual people, and they like to operate from a level of friendship. I learned that the first time I was here. If the ambassador has friends, the work of the consular section in assisting nationals is very much facilitated. That has been one of my major achievements. Also extending my contacts nationwide by having honorary consuls in Ashdod, Haifa and Jerusalem. This has also helped our work a lot.
It’s all about relations. It’s about making friends, and having personal relations with high officials and business leaders.
