Over 100 seen daily at PH consular outreach

Social distancing protocols are strictly enforced during the Philippine Consulate General-Guam’s mobile consular outreach at the Philippine Honorary Consulate-CNMI Support Office at the Sun Palace Hotel Saipan. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

The mobile consular outreach of the Philippine Consulate General-Guam at the Sun Palace Hotel Saipan has been seeing more than 100 individuals per day since they started last Thursday, March 18. By the time the outreach ends on April 11, close to 3,000 Filipinos and their families are expected to have availed of consular services.

Consul Alex O. Vallespin, who is leading the consular team, said yesterday that, so far, they get more than 100 passport renewal applications and more than 30 dual citizenship applications each day.

Vallespin said he and his team of five arrived on Saipan last March 12 and, after a six-day quarantine at Kanoa Resort, they got to work immediately at the Philippine Honorary Consulate-CNMI Support Office at the Sun Palace Hotel.

Today, 25 dual-citizenship applicants will be participating in an oath-taking ceremony, which is the final step in reacquiring Filipino citizenship, Vallespin said.

The consular outreach team—Vallespin (team leader); Jermyn Julius Checa, passport officer; Fritz Gerald Fernandez, passport officer; Ferdinand Villamor, consular officer—Ellen Morco, collecting officer, will be providing consular services on Saipan until April 7, including on weekends. This is touted to be the longest mobile consular outreach according to a poll in the Foreign Service posts of the DFA.

The team will go to Tinian on April 17 and 18, where there are about 150-200 applicants for passport renewal and 10 for dual citizenship.

“It’s been more than a year since we’ve been [on] Saipan, since last March 2020 prior to the lockdown. Before the pandemic, we would visit the CNMI five times—three days for Saipan, one for Tinian, and one for Rota,” said Vallespin.

Vallespin explained that they’ve been planning this outreach since November and December 2020, in coordination with Philippine honorary consul to the CNMI Glicerio “Eli” Arago, and Ariel Mariano.

The decision to extend their stay in the CNMI, Vallespin said, was deemed to be more cost-effective, based on the extra quarantine days when they aren’t able to provide services. Previous consular outreaches usually lasted only four days.

Vallespin assured that COVID-19 protocols are being strictly implemented at the site. Standard protocols such as mandatory wearing of face masks, temperature checks, a sign-in sheet for contact tracing, social distancing, distribution of sanitizers and alcohol pads, and open-door ventilation are all being implemented.

An addition to this, Vallespin said that his team including himself, were all double-dose vaccinated before arriving in the CNMI.