24 April 2017 – Consul General Julius D. Torres led a Consulate team on an outreach mission to Edmonton, Alberta from 21 to 23 April 2017, providing passport and notarial services to nearly 400 Filipinos in the city and surrounding areas.

 

The outreach, held at the Ramada Edmonton South, was organized in cooperation with the Duterte Volunteers of Edmonton headed by Mr. Benjamin Lindo.  During the three-day outreach, the Consulate was able to render 366 consular services comprised of 334 passport applications, 23 notarial services, four civil registrations and five applications for dual citizenship.  An additional two persons who had submitted their dual citizenship applications took the Oath of Allegiance during the outreach mission.

 

The Consulate team was also able to register 64 overseas voters at the outreach.

 

In view of the large number of walk-in passport applicants at the venue who were unable to reserve their places at the outreach, Consul General Torres decided that the Consulate will undertake another outreach mission to Edmonton on the following weekend (28-30 April) to serve these individuals, a decision that was enthusiastically appreciated by the applicants.

 

The Consulate team was joined by Ms. Violeta Buenaventura, Officer-in-Charge of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Vancouver, who offered POLO and OWWA services to Filipino workers who attended the outreach.

 

Edmonton, the capital of Alberta and the province’s second-largest city, is the gateway to Alberta’s oilsands region in the north.  Most of the Filipinos there were historically employed as skilled workers by energy companies that operate in the area, although the current economic downturn has led to retrenchments.  Those formerly employed in the energy sector have either remained unemployed and are searching for work or have begun working in other fields.  Many other Filipinos are employed in the services sector as health care workers, restaurant staff and hotel workers.