No decision yet on request to let Afghans stay

By Rey E. Requejo

PHILIPPINE Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez on Thursday said there is still no green light from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to grant the request made by US government to let Afghan nationals stay in the Philippines while waiting for their Special Immigrant Visa from the US.

Mr. Marcos’ approval will be anchored on the assessment of pros and cons by concerned agencies, including the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the national security cluster, Romualdez added.

Romualdez said Washington made the request in October last year.

However, the Filipino diplomat stressed that until now, there is still no decision from Malacanang, which proves that the government is taking a thorough process before approving it.

“In November, when Vice President Kamala Harris went to the Philippines... the vice president actually asked the President if he had received their request. And I think the President said yes, and I think something to the effect that the President said that he would look into it,” Romualdez said, in an interview with CNN Philippines.

According to him, this only indicates that the government is not making any haste decision.

Romualdez also said US request was merely a request and not a demand. It was not also a secret, contrary to some claims that are trying to “mislead the people,” he added.

In a proposal sent to Malacanang, Villafuerte said, “Implementing further devolution initially in pilot provinces, cities, and municipalities, rather than doing it in one fell swoop, will help the Palace get a clearer picture of how this plan would actually work—and where it wouldn’t—across the country before carrying it out on a nationwide scale.”

“Pilot-testing it, in support of the

SC’s Mandanas-Garcia ruling, would enable the national government to see how further devolution could—and would—be beneficial to everyone, given President Marcos’s own view that a one-size-fits-all approach to decentralization wouldn’t work,” Villafuerte said.

He added that pilot-testing the further devolution plan would help the national government “avoid the pitfalls that had mired the decentralization of agriculture and health functions to local governments in 1992, in keeping with the autonomy provisions of the Local Government Code of 1991.”

“For the government to guarantee the seamless full devolution of certain powers to local governments on the watch of President Marcos we need to steer clear of the omissions in the implementation of the LGC of 1991 that messed up the transition to greater political and fiscal autonomy for local governments,” Villafuerte said.

“And the national government could do this by first implementing further devolution on a pilot basis in selected localities,” he said.

Villafuerte lauded the plan of Mr. Marcos to issue an EO by December 2023 calling for even greater local autonomy, which the President aspires to remain true to the spirit and intent of the SC’s Mandanas-Garcia ruling on the higher local government share of national tax collections.