Consul General Oh Sungyong of the Korean Consulate in Cebu speaks during a Republic of Korea event in Cebu in this 2017 photo. CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON
GOOD news for Cebuanos and Visayans planning to go to South Korea.
The Korean Consulate in Cebu will continue to accept personal applications for visa in order to visit the country, despite the Korean Embassy in Manila’s advisory last week.
According to Consul General Oh Sungyong of the Cebu Consulate, the Embassy’s advisory does not include the consular office in Cebu which serves the Visayas area.
“Our Consulate will do as we did. Visa applicants can come to our office personally. We don’t have any problems in handling it yet,” he told Cebu Daily News.
The Korean Embassy in Manila has issued an advisory last week that starting July 1, visa applications can only be done through around 35 accredited travel agencies.
The Embassy said the large volume of visa applicants prompted them to issue the policy. They noted how some applicants had to stand in line outside the embassy in the hot weather for hours in order to be entertained.
The Embassy said that from only 90,000 applicants for the whole year in 2015, the number increased to 120,000 by the end of 2016, and 160,000 by the end of last year.
In the Cebu Korean Consulate, which opened last March 2015, the number of visa applicants has also increased.
According to Consul General Oh, their office now caters to an average of 60 visa applicants a day this year. Last year, it was only at 42 daily.
From January to May this year, the Cebu Consulate has catered to a total of 5,301 visa applicants.
This is a 33.6 percent increase compared to 3,518 visa applicants in the same four-year period in 2017.
For the entire year last year, the Cebu Consulate recorded a total of 9,901 visa applicants.
Among the reasons attributed for the increase in applicants for the first four months of 2018 is the “numerous” long weekends enjoyed by Filipinos in between March to May, according to Oh.
“The summer months in the Philippines also coincidentally fall on the Spring season in South Korea, one of the best times to visit our country,” he added.
The Korean Consulate in Cebu is located at the 12th floor of the Chinabank Corporate Center at the Cebu Business Park.