CEBU CITY – The Department of Foreign Affairs has opened an authentication service center in Mandaue City which will cater to the needs of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the opening of center at the Pacific Mall will ease the burden of OFWs from the Visayas in securing “red-ribbon” papers needed for travel abroad.
Locsin and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas, Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino, led the inauguration of the center. “For too long, they spend considerable time, money, and effort to avail of simple government service. I can only imagine the difficulties, hardships, and the frustration of the people,” Locsin said, adding, the authentication service for travel documents were previously available only in Manila and Pampanga.
Locsin also thanked the Pacific Mall for allowing the DFA to open such service for the applicants from the Visayas. “This is just the beginning. Under my watch, I tend to open more authentication centers and consular offices throughout Mindanao and Visayas in order to bring frontline services closer to the people,” he said.
“There are many other services that the DFA renders to the public that you want it here, you will have it here, as fast as possible,” he added.
Dino, for his part, commended Locsin for the effort of putting up an authentication service center in Cebu. “We have been burdened by the previous three-step process for authentication for decades, not only was it costly, it was very time-consuming for the people. Legal processes and business transactions, here and abroad, would be further delayed if it involved documents from within or outside the Philippines that required authentication. It truly is remarkable that we now have the authentication through apostille,” Dino said.
“It is a milestone because the painstaking traditional three-step authentication process has now become a streamlined two-step apostillization which only costs P100 for regular processing and only takes four working days,” he added. (John Rey Saavedra)
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