DFA confirms death of Fil-Am elderly in Maui, Hawaii wildfires

THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has confirmed the death of a FilipinoAmerican senior citizen in the Maui, Hawaii wildfires.

DFA Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega identified the Fil-Am casualty as Alfredo Galinato, 79 years old from Ilocos Norte.

Authorities in Hawaii said 111 people died from the wildfires that raced across Maui.

the license card supply contract.

H owever, it is bent on having this project moving and will exhaust legal remedies to get the supplies coming as soon as possible.

Certainly, this is a major setback on our goal of addressing the backlog on the physical driver’s license which we target to complete by September this year. T he backlog is around 1.7 million as of this month—and mounting everyday

Only five of the casualties were identified so far:

1. Buddy Jantoc, 79

2. Melva Benjamin, 71

3. Virginia Dofa, 90

4. Robert Dyckman, 74; and

5. Alfredo Galinato, 79.

G alinato is a naturalized US citizen.

Consul General Emil Fernandez said Hawaii considering the number of applications we are receiving for new, and the renewal of driver’s license on a daily basis,” the LTO said.

Allcard Inc., the bidder that failed the postqualification process for the said deal, sought the issuance of a stay order against the deal, citing “grave abuse of discretion regulating in lack or excess of jurisdiction to post disqualify petitioner Allcard, despite being the lowest calculated bidder and consequently to question the award of the contract to respondent Banner authorities are not releasing the ethnicity of the casualties.

They were able to confirm Galinato’s Philippine roots from Consular records.

De Vega said the Philippine Consulate in Honolulu is assisting the family who are all based in Hawaii.

The Consulate has dispatched a four-person team to Maui on August 15 and 16 to render

Plasticard Inc.”

B anner Plasticard Inc. won the auction in June.

To recall, Allcard was disqualified during the post-qualification process of its bid after the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) Central Bids and Awards Committee (CBAC) found that it had “incurred delays in its ongoing contracts with the government.”

Particularly, the Allcard supposedly failed to deliver on its obligations to the emergency Consular services to affected Filipinos.

Furthermore, MIAA reported an impressive income of P1.9 billion in 2022, a striking turnaround from the combined losses of P3.6 billion suffered in 2020 and 2021. Notably, passenger numbers have surged from 7.8 million in 2021 to around 31 million in 2022, with Naia expecting to handle close to 47 million passengers by the end of this year. Chiong, in his petition with the Court of Appeals, questioned the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.

He said the anonymous complainants were supposed to have exhausted administrative remedies first and filed with the Civil Service Commission instead of with the Ombudsman. H e also said as general manager, he had the authority to re-assign personnel, which he did without any diminution in their status, pay and rank.

Fernandez said 66 Filipinos applied for the replacement of their lost Philippine passports.

Consul General Fernandez also met with three newly arrived Filipino teachers who were based in Lahaina. They are part of a group of 30 assigned in the island of Maui. All are safe and accounted for.

Fernandez also met with community leaders and local officials, including the office of the Maui County mayor. Malou Talosig-Bartolome

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Social Security System (SSS), and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank). H owever, in its petition to the court, Allcard alleged these were “merely taken on face value and were never verified.”

In his ruling, Quezon City RTC Branch 215 Presiding Judge Rafael G. Hipolito said the court issued the stay order, as Allcard

See “License card,” A4