The suspension of consular services at the Romanian Embassy in Manila is affecting hundreds of Filipino workers who are already expected in the country by Romanian employers. With 100,000 foreign workers with the right to work in Romania this year, a significant percentage of this number is represented by staff in the Philippines, in great demand among Romanian employers.
The situation is also worrying for foreign workers who already have work permits issued by the General Inspectorate for Immigration and were about to come to the country, and for Romanian employers left without laborTheir entire approach was halted with the suspension of consular services in the Embassy.
Since September there is no longer a permanent consul at the Romanian Embassy in Manila. A temporary consul was sent for six weeks, who processed all visas and provided consular services for his diplomatic mission, but unfortunately he has left. I personally spoke to the Ambassador in Manila, as the consular section is closed, The MFA must give us a new possibility to issue work visas, which still hasn't happened. No consul has been sent and it is not even known whether a new one will be appointed, as our agency alone has dozens of work permits for Filipino citizens and we cannot take visas.
Yosef Gavriel Peisakh, General Manager Work from Asia
This is not the first time we have seen this kind of situation, but it is certainly the first time that a clear solution in this respect is not offered by the Romanian authorities to the business environment, according to representatives of the Asian recruitment agency in Romania.
In the past, such cases were settled by redirecting these work visa services to Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hanoi or Bangkok, where diplomatic missions in these locations took over the duties of the Manila Embassy.
The official website of the Romanian Embassy in Manila currently lists a notice of suspension of consular activity:
"As of October 25, 2022, consular activity at the Romanian Embassy in the Republic of the Philippines is temporarily suspended.
We will come back with more information as soon as we have more details." says the announcement.
Since the outbreak of this situation, an open letter was also sent to the Foreign Ministry, in which one of the foreign recruitment and placement agencies called for a solution to this crisis and even indicated a number of measures to this end.
