AUTHENTICATION CENTER IN CEBU. Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. (fourth from left) and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino (third from left) lead other officials in the ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the opening of the Authentication Service Center in the DFA-Cebu Consular Office at the Pacific Mall in Mandaue City on Tuesday (Sept. 10, 2019). Locsin said the center will cater to OFWs in the Visayas whose papers for travel abroad need "red-ribbon" authentication. (Photo courtesy of Danjick Lim/OPAV)
CEBU CITY -- Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Tuesday said the opening of an authentication service center at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Cebu Consular Office in Mandaue, Cebu will ease the burden of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the Visayas in securing “red-ribbon” papers needed for travel abroad.
Locsin, who led the opening of the Authentication Service center on Tuesday, along with Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino, said the center will cater to the needs of OFWs whose “work or livelihood abroad rests on a piece of paper that needs for verification.”
“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 pointed out in his message during the inauguration of the center at the Pacific Mall in Mandaue City.
Locsin narrated that before the opening of the authentication hub in Cebu on Tuesday and in Davao in June this year, authentication service for documents to be attached for travel passport and visa applications were only available in Manila and Pampanga.
He lamented the reality before that some of the people who wanted their travel papers to get authenticated, need to travel to Manila.
The DFA chief thanked the mall owner for allowing the department 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,” Locsin 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 having a “leap forward in our authentication process.”
“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,” Dino recalled on how the procedure in authenticating documents before the opening of the center in Mandaue.
“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 PHP100 for regular processing and only takes four working days,” he added.
Dino was referring to the Apostille Convention existing for more than 50 years that requires shortened steps in authenticating papers. (PNA)
