DOT's Guardian of the Law
ATTY. SHEREEN GAIL YU-PAMINTUAN
It was an easy decision for lawyer Shereen Gail Yu-Pamintuan to work with Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Christina Frasco as her undersecretary. After all, they were classmates at Ateneo Law School, they graduated in the same year, and worked together at the prestigious Romulo Law Firm.
The question was, did she want to leave her law firm of 15 years and join government service? While Yu-Pamintuan had served as executive director of the League of Cities of the Philippines from 2016 to 2020, the national government was an entirely different ballgame.
“It did take some time to convince my family and I’m a very private person as well,” she says. But she also didn’t want to pass up the opportunity of working with Frasco, whom she recalls being “passionate, studious, and always the articulate one representing the law school in international moot court competitions.”
As the DOT’s Undersecretary for Administration and Finance, Atty. Yu-Pamintuan makes sure that the DOT’s purse is managed well. That “purse” contains P2.9 billion, slightly less than last year’s budget of P3.1 billion. “That’s only .0012 of the country’s entire budget. We are at the bottom four of the line agencies of the national government,” she points out.
“The DOT plans well and executes things well on that budget. One of the advantages of being a lawyer joining the government is that you come with a strong background of doing due diligence, making sure we are compliant with the rules because we have to be very transparent.”
As a taxpayer herself, she wants to know how the money is spent, that it doesn’t go to projects that don’t have much impact. “I think the purpose of knowing the law is to understand the rationale, to make operations better for everyone in the office, and at the same time to understand where the auditors are coming from.”
Being a tourism powerhouse
Government projects often face controversies, some justified and some not. The DOT is no exception. Regarding the department's finances, Yu-Pamintuan says, “I want to assure the public that all projects undergo proper procurement, vetting, and competitive bidding by our bids committee. Nothing is paid for unless it complies with the law.”
The Undersecretary says the DOT’s goal is for the Philippines to become a tourism powerhouse and to develop a tourism portfolio nationwide. “One of our plans is to push for a tourism circuit that’s regionwide. For example, if you want to do heritage, culture or pilgrimage, that’s one circuit where we can spread tourism equally, not just among the bigger cities or award-winning destinations but to small, rural communities.”
The DOT’s strategy, she says, is to find more private stakeholders and partners to invest in tourism. “From the very beginning, the secretary was clear that we are open to collaborating with stakeholders interested in developing the tourism landscape. We also need to be actively present in international fairs abroad to promote our niche offerings like health and wellness, sports and golf tourism.”
While the country has countless beautiful destinations in thousands of islands, there is the issue of connectivity. For instance, to hop from one to another often requires a stopover in Manila. In the case of El Nido, there is only one airline that flies visitors direct to Boracay, Cebu and Bohol.
Promote and preserve
“Tourism is so interesting because you have to promote and yet you have to preserve at the same time,” Yu-Pamintuan reflects. “We’ve noticed that a new kind of traveler has emerged after the pandemic: they no longer want to be stuck on the beach; they want authentic experiences that are memorable. This shift in mindset also means that they are trying to offset their own carbon footprint when they travel.”
Sustainable practices are really the only way to make tourism work for people in the long term. “We want to make sure that we don’t over-commercialize our destinations. We want to uplift our communities economically, involve them in the circular economy, and make them love and protect what they have.”
The Undersecretary cites the DOT accreditation as one way of cascading this important message to stakeholders, saying they have integrated sustainable and green practices into the accreditation standards of establishments across the country.
She believes that Region 3 is perfectly poised for sustainable tourism. “It’s a matter of educating our local communities to ensure that the authenticity of the locations is maintained. We want tourists to leave nothing but memories—and that usually starts with the tour guides, especially those who accompany their hikes.”
“I think one of the boldest decisions I ever made was to marry a Filipino; my siblings all married full-blooded Chinese.” In time, of course, her father accepted her choice and the family would tease him, “See, you shouldn’t have sent her to law school.”
