The current Philippine Consulate General in Houston was opened on September 24, 2018, 25 years after the first consulate was closed in September 1993, ostensibly due to budget issues, as well as the low number of Filipinos in the area at the time. Closing the first consulate was ordered during the administration of President Corazon Aquino, with holdover consuls heading the post until it was finally closed by her successor, Fidel V. Ramos. During the existence of the first consulate, Consul General Rodolfo Severino Jr. and other officers called on President Ferdinand Marcos to resign in the run-up to the People Power Revolution that would lead to his ouster. After that consulate was closed, relations were conducted through an honorary consulate, led most recently by Ethel R. Mercado. However, the city's rapidly-growing Filipino community continued to pressure for its reopening, and in January 2018, Foreign Affairs SecretaryAlan Peter Cayetano announced that the Consulate would reopen, alongside the future opening of three other missions. Philippine Ambassador to the United StatesJose Manuel Romualdez, writing in The Philippine Star, particularly credited Senator Loren Legarda with pushing to allocate more funds for the opening of new Philippine diplomatic missions, including in Houston. The Consulate reopened out of a temporary space until finally moving to its permanent location, one floor below in the same building, on March 21, 2019.
Staff and activities
The Philippine Consulate General in Houston is headed by Consul General Jerril G. Santos. Prior to becoming Consul General, he served as Assistant Secretary and Chief of Protocol at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, and before that was posted at the Philippine Embassy in Hanoi as the Ambassador to Vietnam. In addition to Santos, there are eleven other staffers deployed to the Consulate. Currently, the Consulate's jurisdiction covers Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma in addition to Texas, and also exercises jurisdiction over the honorary consulates in Dallas and New Orleans, with former honorary consul Ethel R. Mercado being appointed to head the Dallas consulate. Prior to its reopening the various states were under the jurisdiction of other missions: Texas and New Mexico were under the jurisdiction of the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles, which in partnership with local organizations conducted monthly outreach visits in Houston, while Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma were under the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago. Since its reopening, the Consulate has conducted outreach missions in major cities within its jurisdiction, including in Little Rock, Albuquerque, Jackson, and Oklahoma City, as well as within Texas.
