ALKHOBAR, 11 October — The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh had announced that the “Embassy on Wheels” will be visiting Alkhobar on Oct. 17 and 18, respectively, to conduct consular services to the OFWs in the Eastern Region.

The consular team, headed by Vice Consul and Third Secretary Germinia Aguilar-Usudan will be at the Park Hotel from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to provide consular services, assistance to labor problems or police cases.

Assisting Usudan in the consular service are attachés Emmanuel Espinelli and Lilian Tinio. Labor-related problems will be handled by the POLO-OWWA team lead by Assistant Labor Attaché Jalilo dela Torre and Supervising Welfare Officer Sotero Tornea.

This will be the third consecutive monthly visit of the roaming “Embassy on Wheels” in the Eastern Region since Ambassador Bahnarim Guinomla assumed office in July.

The regular visit was in lieu of an extension office of the embassy, as sought by Filipinos in the region, pending approval by the host government of an application for the establishment of an office there.

Vice Consul Usudan also said that they will still accept the information sheets the OFWs will submit for possible consideration on the Gulf War Claims. “We have already sent at least four boxes of information sheets to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila,” Usudan said.

The deadline for submission of the information forms was set on Sept. 15 but this was reconsidered as many OFWs have yet to file their information sheets.

The Philippine Claims Compensation Committee in Manila has yet to announce if the United Nation Compensation Committee (UNCC) will still accept late filers after the deadline for filing the claims already expired in 1996. Word from Manila has it that the DFA will be announcing the response of UNCC Governing Council by Oct. 15 if they will reopen the filing of Gulf War claims.

Freda Contreras Buhaimed, editor of the Suite101.com based in Kuwait, who is in contact with Ambassador Bayani Mangibin, head of the PCCCS in DFA Manila, said that Mangibin had included the OFWs in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia in his request to the UNCC Governing Council.

However, she said that the UNCC meeting which was scheduled on September was moved to October.

For further inquiries, the Consular Section of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh can be reached at telephone number 482-38-16.