Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Thursday defended the Philippine Consulate in Los Angeles, California for its failure to respond to mounting complaints against its alleged “unprofessional, incompetent and pathetic” online consular services.

In a tweet, Locsin hinted at a potential hacking of the Consulate’s website resulting in a huge backlog in the number of applicants for passports and other consular services. 

“There you go. 400k hits in a span of a few hours. Is that characteristic or a hack? Can we look into it? I can’t imagine that many wanting consular services in a few hours,” Locsin said in a tweet.

DFA Undersecretary for Civil Security Brigido Dulay earlier reported to Locsin that the LA Consulate’s appointment system “crashed” after getting 400,000 hits in a span of a few hours.

Dulay said the LA scheduling system is now back online but is only “limited” citing health and safety protocols.

However, many netizens are saying that the Consulate’s online problem started even as far back as one year ago. 
More than 1,500 netizens, mostly residing in the Southern California area, have vented their anger on the official Facebook account of the Consulate, many of them complaining about their difficulty to access not just the online system but even the Consulate’s telephone line.

“Not able to book appointment for over a year now. The website is a complete disaster. Thousands of people waiting to book for months now. Consul needs to resign. This is so unprofessional, incompetent, and pathetic,” a female netizen posted on the Consulate’s FB account.

“Ligaya” (not her real name), a Filipino national residing in the Los Angeles County of Torrance, told the Manila Bulletin that she has been trying to access the Consulate’s online system since September last year to renew her passport but to no avail. 

“Sobrang hirap po, kahit tawag sa telepono walang sumasagot sa Consulate kundi answering machine (It’s so difficult, nobody’s attending on the Consulate’s telephone except the answering machine),” she said.

On Feb. 15, the Philippine Consulate posted an apology on its FB account for the inconvenience that the public has been experiencing due to the “unusually high traffic” on its website’s scheduling system. In a succeeding post, the Consulate advised the public to “press the browser’s button if the site (website) fails to load.”

To which one netizen responded: “Some of us don’t have the time or luxury to sit and ‘hit refresh’ all day. To expect that is unreasonable. At this point, I could lose my job because I cannot have my passport renewed! I have emailed, called, left messages, and FB messaged to try to appeal to their good senses but no one will reply. This is my livelihood at stake here for heaven’s sake… There has to be a better way to service our people!” the female netizen said. 

In December last year, the Philippine Consulate in LA shut down its operations during the entire Christmas and New Year season after one of its employees tested positive for COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019).