The Philippine Consulate General

The Philippine Consulate in Vancouver was established in May 1956, the very first Philippine foreign service post in Canada, with Consul Gautier F. Bisnar as Head of Post. The Consulate in Vancouver remained as the Philippines’ lone diplomatic and consular office covering the whole of Canada until the establishment of the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa in 1971. It was upgraded to a Consulate General on 24 August 1962. Hon. Francisco O. Oira served as the first Consul General from 17 December 1962 until 03 August 1968.

Consul General Oira was succeeded by the following Consuls General:

Hon. Gauttier F. Bisnar – 02 December 1968 – May 1971
Hon. Jose Teodoro, Jr. – 01 June 1971 – 04 July 1975
Hon. Vicente Romero – 07 January 1976 – 15 August 1984
Hon. Luz del Mundo – 1984 – 1988
Hon. Rufino Martinez – 18 July 1988 – May 1990
Hon. Eufronia M. Recaido – 07 May 1990 – June 1992
Hon. Lourdes G. Morales – 24 June 1992 – 02 July 1998
Hon. Zenaida T. Rabago – 18 July 1999 – 21 August 2005
Hon. Minerva Jean A. Falcon- 15 October 2005 – 10 March 2007
Hon. Ruth Morales Prado – 24 June 2007 – 2010
Hon. Jose A.P. Ampeso – 16 June 2011 – 30 September 2013
Hon. Neil Frank R. Ferrer – 09 October 2013 – 15 June 2018
Hon. Maria Andrelita S Austria – 16 June 2018 – 3 March 2023
Hon. Arlene T. Magno – 27 March 2023 – 30 September 2024

The Consulate General in Vancouver commemorated its 60th anniversary of establishment on 21 May 2016.

The Consulate General has jurisdiction over British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories.

The Consulate General moved to its current address at Suite 660, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver in August 2014 after fifteen years of holding an office space on the 14th floor of the Pacific Centre, 700 West Pender Street, Vancouver.

​​Presently, the Consulate General’s officers are:

 

Consul General Gina A. Jamoralin

Consul General Gina Alagon Jamoralin, Ph.D, MBA, MPA is a career diplomat holding the rank of Chief of Mission, Class I. She has been in the Philippine Foreign Service since 1992 and has served in various capacities in the Home Office and several Philippine foreign service posts.

Prior to her assignment as PH Consul General to Vancouver, she was appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Philippines to the Republic of Indonesia in 2022 and assumed her position as AEP from 2023-2024. Prior to that, she also served as Consul General in Honolulu and Chicago from 2014 to 2020. As junior officer, she was assigned in Tokyo and Bucharest between 2006-2012 and 1996-2002, respectively.

In her three decades in the Philippine Foreign Service, she has proactively pursued initiatives to advance the interests of the Philippines and the Filipino Communities in her jurisdiction. As Consul General in Honolulu, she initiated the drafting of the bill HB604, which was unanimously passed into law, designating 20 December as Sakada Day in the state of Hawaii to commemorate the arrival of the first Filipino “sakadas” or Filipino plantation workers in Hawaii in 1906, who helped build Hawaii’s economy. Since then 20 December is widely celebrated across all the islands of Hawaii

Another gem in Dr. Jamoralin’s tour of duty as Consul General in Honolulu was the establishment of the Ilocano Language Acquisition and Immersion for the New Generation (ILAING) in 2015. The program is active to this day, with alumni of the pioneer cohort shepherded by Dr. Jamoralin continuing the work and expanding the program to include other Filipino languages.

As Consul General in Chicago, she also initiated an immersion program for Filipino-Americans in collaboration with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas entitled Youth Leaders in the Diaspora (YouLead) Immersion Program in the US Midwest. The program was able to send young millennial FilAms in 2019 and 2020 to different parts of the PH for a week-long cultural immersion program.

As Ambassador to Indonesia she spearheaded the activities for the 75th anniversary of PH-ID relations through a cultural concert featuring Filipino and Indonesian artists last 10 November 2024; organized a lecture on maritime culture by Prof. Ambeth Ocampo; organized a lecture on the West Philippine Sea by former SC Justice Antonio Carpio before students of Bintang Nusantara University (BINUS) and the Maritime Museum in Jakarta; organized PH food festival featuring Chef Pendatun to promote halal cuisine of Mindanao in Jakarta and North Sulawesi; and welcomed President Bongbong Marcos Jr. and FL during the two ASEAN summits in May and September 2023 in Labuan Bajo and Jakarta, and again in October 2024 for the inauguration of the Indonesian president. She also helped organize the visits of President Joko Widodo to Manila on 9-10 January 2024 and the visit of then president-elect Prabowo Subiano to Manila on 21 September 2024.

In the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) Home Office, she also served as the Assistant Secretary of the Office of International Economic Relations (OIER) from 2021 to 2023, Assistant Secretary of the Office of American Affairs (OAA) in 2014, Director for Trade and Economics of the Office of United Nations and International Organizations (UNIO) from 2004 to 2006, and Special Assistant for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) National Secretariat from 1992 to 1996.

Dr. Jamoralin obtained her doctorate degree in Economics at the University of Santo Tomas. She earned her Master of Business Administration at the McGill University in Tokyo, Japan and her Master of Public Administration as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of the Philippines. She also completed diploma courses in International Relations, Diplomacy, International Trade Law and International Security in The Hague, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Honolulu, respectively.

 

Consul Analyn D. Ratonel

Ms. Analyn D. Ratonel is currently designated as Consul at the Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver, B.C. She assumed her post on 25 January 2020.

Her previous foreign assignments were at the Philippine Embassy in Vientiane, Laos (2011-2015) and the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia (2015-2017). Prior to this, she was assigned at the Office of Consular Affairs (OCA) as Principal Assistant. Later on, she assumed as Acting Director of the Consular Records Division (CRD) at OCA.

Before coming to Vancouver, Consul Ratonel was Acting Director of the South America and Multilateral Affairs Division in the Office of American Affairs where she handled both bilateral relations with South American countries and engagement with the Forum for East Asia and Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) and the Pacific Alliance (PA).

Consul Ratonel holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science major in Area Studies, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines Manila. She also completed 24 units of MA in Asian Studies from University of the Philippines Diliman.

She is married to Engineer Neil Ratonel and they are blessed with two children, Nicole and Nash.

 

Consul Ericka Anna Abad

Consul Ericka Anna Abad began her career in the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2009. Prior to her assignment in Vancouver, she was assigned in the Philippine Embassy in Ankara, Turkey as Third Secretary and Vice Consul then as Second Secretary and Consul from 2012 to 2016. She also served as Consul in the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago from 2016 to 2019.

In Manila, Consul Abad was Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Civilian Security and Consular Affairs from 2019 to 2021, and Principal Assistant (or Assistant Director) in the Office of Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2009 to 2012.

Consul Abad graduated from the University of the Philippines, Diliman in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. She completed her Master in International Studies in the same university in 2009.

 

Vice Consul Marco Frederick B. Harder

Marco Harder is a career Foreign Service Officer at the Department of Foreign Affairs. Vancouver is his first foreign assignment.

In the Home Office, he has served in the Office of the Undersecretary for Administration and the Human Resources Management Office.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he was a human resources and management consulting professional for sixteen (16) years. He has worked in these domains in several industries such as IT-BPM, Financial Services, Telecommunications, and Building Materials.

Vice Consul Harder holds a bachelor’s degree in Speech Communication from the University of the Philippines in Diliman.