ABS-CBN North & Latin America hosted recently the visit to the TFC Office and Studio in Daly City of the Chairperson of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), Secretary and former Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals Francisco P. Acosta. The Secretary arrived with CFO Head Executive Assistant to the Secretary and Legal Counsel Atty. Xerxes E. Cortel, Paolo Calingasan, Consul Vanessa Bago-Llona and Cultural Officer Toni Van Espen-Boonen of the Philippine Consulate General of San Francisco.

Secretary Acosta, Undersecretary Astravel Pimentel-Naik (Executive Director) together with a CFO delegation have stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas from November 17 to 30, 2019 to conduct the Ugnayan Program as part of CFO’s mission to strengthen the ties of the Filipino diaspora with the Philippines. The CFO is a government agency under the Office of the President tasked to protect the rights and welfare of Filipinos overseas, especially those who have emigrated permanently to other countries and the younger generations of Filipinos abroad.

Through fora and consultations, the CFO’s Ugnayan aims to enhance networking among members and leaders of community organizations and to explore ways by which the Philippine government can render support to programs and services for the Filipino diaspora, and establish an efficient and transparent mechanism to enhance development assistance flows to the Philippines. For 2019, the Ugnayan forum has been held in Guam, Tokyo, Seoul, and Hawaii. The Philippine Consulates General in San Francisco and Los Angeles co-organized this leg of Ugnayan in the West Coast. The visit to TFC was part of the strategic talks to discuss how CFO can grow its partnership with ABS-CBN to assist overseas migrant and transient Filipinos globally via public service.

Below are photos of the visit of Secretary Acosta and his team at the TFC Studios in Daly City.