CELIA ANNA "COOKIE" M. FERIA
1. Give us an example of a goal you’ve set and how you achieved it.
My goal is simple, that is to be of help and of service to my fellow Filipino. This is perhaps the reason I chose I career in the Philippine Foreign Service. And yet as far as I can remember, it was my early Assumption education, my years with the Nuns and teachers in San Lorenzo ( and that one year in Herran) that made me realize that being of help to others was more than just a good thing, that it was the right thing to do. That we need to be of service to each other.
Throughout my 33 years in the Philippine Foreign Service ( I still have 2 more years before retiring in November 2025), I was always guided by that goal of being of help to my fellow Filipino anywhere in the world. Often times it would be in the form of an honest advise like having a heart to heart talk, or making sure they knew their rights as foreign workers and that they were treated with respect and dignity, or even just making sure that their time in the Embassy is not wasted when applying for regular consular services.
Being of help and service to my fellow Filipino is also projected in work I do in the international arena. As the DFA’s thrust is to protect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national interest of the Philippines, both in the political and economic spheres, as well as protecting the rights and welfare of Filipinos overseas, being of service to my fellow Filipino in whatever form continues to be part of my daily life.
2. Do you have any suggestions on how we can help our beneficiaries?
It’s all about empowering people, especially women and children, with the right
information, “the right tools”, and by just taking time to explain the options available to them, we can help the AC beneficiaries help themselves.
We need to open their minds to the potential they can achieve, on their own and in their own terms by empowering them. We can lay out some options, with accompanying “instructions” or “guidance” on how to proceed, and we coach them throughout the process.
3. What did you learn about yourself from the pandemic?
I was in Lisbon the entire pandemic period and there could not have been a better place to be to spend COVID isolation time than in Lisbon. We were indeed fortunate that we could still walk around our immediate vicinities and even go to the supermarket, but with masks and loads of germicide, in its many forms.
Yet there was the other side to this. There were Filipinos in Portugal who lost their jobs, a few got very sick and had to be intubated, others just got sick because they did not believe in the dangers of COVID. Then there were the Filipinos who needed to be repatriated, mostly those who were working on cruise ships that suddenly stopped plying the seas.
All these made me realize how fleeting life is, how important our health is, that material possessions don’t matter when faced with a virus ( then unknown). But it also made me see the innate kindness of people. Of how we Filipinos rise up to the challenges, help each other rise from a fall, and build up our communities to make them stronger and more resilient.