Department of Foreign Affairs - Iloilo

The online appointment is easy yet the issue is the availability of the slot. Got my appointment last May and the available schedule during that time is September, that is almost 5 months. But I will give my review based on my actual visit. I will rate the agency 5 because of the orderly management of the transactions. Starting from the lineup outside the office they really respect the time of your schedule, as what the instructions stated you should go there 15-30 minutes prior your chosen time because they will really respect that. I also like the system that a personnel check the documents prior entering. During the assessment of the documents their personnel shows their expertise that is why it is fast. I also like that they label the front row seats for priority (senior citizens, pwd, etc). Overall i applaud the fast transactions. Kudos!

Ridiculous that you need to fetch an authentication of certificates you got from other offices. These other offices should already be authenticated, or why should they exist then? This place is overrun by people having to get their documents authenticated only to find out they want you to give other documents as well, bring copies and don't accept your ID. It feels very arbitrary and any bureaucratic efficiency is just non-existent. This is just a torture for the citizens who have to run between multiple offices spread all over the city just to get already official certificates authenticated. Completely ridiculous.

You're not allowed to walk in. The reason of the guards on duty is still the pandemic when the Philippines is already open for tourism. The guards will only give you a piece of paper with email and phone number to contact for urgent concerns. I sent an email 2 days ago and until now no response. They also don't answer phone calls. There is no available schedule for appointments online either. The only people who are trying to help are the fixers. Instead of paying Php200 for a regular apostille you'll end up paying at least Php2,000 per page if you're lucky. The DFA Philippines doesn't care about this impending concern for a very long time. Their employees are already going home at 3:45PM when government offices are closing at 5PM. The staff processing the apostille will let you pay for the apostille they don't process (see image of their receipt). They wouldn't give you back the money as well. So you're paying them for not doing their jobs. Their reason was they cannot read the PSA authenticated birth certificate and they would need to have it verified from the civil registrar in Manila. FYI, this birth certificate I need to be apostilled is the same birth certificate used for filing all my valid government IDs and now DFA Iloilo is the only office having trouble reading it in all government offices in the Philippines.

If I can give zero starts, I would. The management of DFA iloilo is very incompetent. From start to finish, it was nothing but a disaster. You would pay extra for expedited process, but then they would say the extra amount was not for the expedited process but for being in their extension office, however you can book an appointment on their extended office without paying extra. They provided a time frame but then it was delayed due to "changing of couriers". I these people managing DFA can be replaced by people who actually knows qhat they are doing.