Ms. Maria Lourdes M Salcedo has been appointed by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary, Teodoro Locsin Jr, as the new Consul General in Melbourne. Since her appointment five months ago, Consul General Salcedo has finally arrived in Melbourne on Sunday 29 November.
Three consular staff have joined ConGen Salcedo from Manila and have completed their 14-day hotel quarantine in a Sydney hotel.
The arrival of the Consul General is much awaited after the full-fledged Philippine Consulate General opened in Melbourne in February this year. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there were substantial delays in the appointment of the Consul General with additional staff, as well as the roll out of additional services, especially concerning passports.
Atty. Anthony Achilles Mandap who filled the role of Acting Consul General for the past 11 months will now assume the role of Deputy Consul General. He will be providing Consul General Salcedo with a handover in her first days in office.
Mandap informed The Philippine Times that it will be a priority to set up the passport services for renewals and new applications, as many Filipinos have been waiting for it during the pandemic.
According to Mandap, it also planned that Consul General Salcedo will also make contact with ASEAN counterparts and other allies to inform them of their presence in Victoria. A meeting with the Filipino community leaders is also planned in the near future.
Consul General Salcedo was formerly the Executive Director of the DFA Human Resources Management Office, where she has worked since November 2016. “Supporting our personnel so they may be able to perform their work well is our primary responsibility at the Human Resources Management Office,” said Salcedo in April 2019 while in this role.
Her first overseas posting was at the Philippine Embassy in Canberra, where she was Third Secretary, and then Second Secretary/Consul over 15 years ago, serving under former Ambassadors Willy C. Gaa, Cristina G. Ortega, and Ernesto H. De Leon.
After her post in Australia, she took on the role of Consul General at the Philippine Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar prior to her role as Executive Director in Human Resources (as seen above).
More details to come.
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