PUBLIC Attorney's Office (PAO) chief Persida Rueda-Acosta has renewed her call to expand her agency's free legal services to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) by assigning its lawyers to embassies and consulate offices.

Rueda-Acosta revealed her vision to defend OFWs who are facing legal battles while working away from their families during an interview with The Manila Times' streaming show, "PrimeTimes with Atty. Lia Badillo-Crisostomo."

She said the plan was first presented during the time of former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte, who also liked the idea of assigning a PAO lawyer to every embassy or consulate office abroad.

"But then Foreign Affairs Secretary Peter Cayetano said he could handle the matter, so I did not insist," she said.

If she has her way, Rueda-Acosta said PAO must be expanded to embassies in countries that host OFWs.

She lamented that her agency was only called on to assist OFWs who were already due for execution.

"There was a time in Singapore where an AOFW was sentenced to death, but we had exhausted all legal remedies, and the sentence was only reduced to 10 years in prison, and the OFW has already gone home by this time," Rueda-Acosta said.

PAO continues to help OFWs but only on a limited basis because of funding constraints, she said.

"Just like the Department of Foreign Affairs, we hope to get our own funds so that PAO could also be more effective in extending legal services to our endeared OFWs," Rueda-Acosta said.

She was asked what her most memorable time was following her appointment as PAO chief in 2001 by then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

She said it was in 2004, when she led PAO lawyers in handling the case of 1,200 convicts, 200 of whom were sentenced to die via lethal injection.

"It was first time in the history of PAO that its chief was conducting an oral argument before the Supreme Court, where I filed a petition to suspend the execution," Rueda-Acosta said.

Eight associate justices favored the suspension, six were against it, and one abstained.

She recalled that she was surprised when she found an ally in the solicitor general, Commission on Human Rights, as well as Amnesty International and European Union that supported her filing of the petition.

She told the PrimeTimes that PAO now also uses social media to reach out to people.

"In 2019, PAO had served over 13 million indigents, but after the Covid-19 pandemic, the number was reduced to 6 million, so we decided to maximize our resources, and I have my regular columns with The Manila Times and tabloid Bulgar and now the #PALA or Persida Acosta's Legal Advice, that could be reached through Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, among others," Rueda-Acosta said.

She said she has been joining the Lab for All caravans of first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and similar activities of House Speaker Martin Romualdez to provide free legal services to more indigents who have no access to social services.

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