DFA opens authentication services in Cebu consular office

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin speaks during the launching of the authentication services at the Cebu Consular Office on Tuesday, September 10, 2019. CDN Digital photo | Rosalie Abatayo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has launched its authentication services in the Cebu Consular Office in Mandaue City Tuesday, September 10, 2019.

This means that Filipinos, especially overseas workers, who wish to have their documents authenticated in order to work abroad, will no longer have to travel to Manila to avail of the service 

“This means less aggravation and less cost for millions of Filipinos who rely on cross-border exchange of documents for works, study and business,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said in his speech.

The authentication services in the DFA Cebu Consular Office at the fourth floor of Pacific Mall in Mandaue City is the first in the Visayas.

Locsin said the offering of the authentication services in Cebu Consular Office is a long overdue project that is supposedly necessary to ease the government transactions here.

“I can only imagine the difficulties, or more accurately, the frustration that our people must have felt. Some may even call it a travesty that such services was, until recently, only available in Metro Manila and Pampanga,” Locsin said.

In June 2019, the DFA also launched the authentication services in the Davao Consular Office.

Locsin said the opening of the authentication services center in Cebu Consular Office completes the roll out of the service nationwide. In total, there are now eight DFA offices in the country that offers authentication services: six in Luzon, Cebu in the Visayas and Davao for Mindanao.

Locsin said they intend to roll out the authentication services in other DFA Consular Offices in the coming months. /bmjo