23 January 2014- To kick off its annual Consulate-on-Wheels/Wings (COW) program for 2014, the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco deployed an eight-person consular outreach team to Milpitas on January 19 to offer consular services to kababayans there. The consular outreach in Milpitas, which is usually held on every third Sunday of the month, was hosted by Seafood City.

The team, headed by Consul Reichel Quiñones and assisted by volunteers from the local community, served over 200 applicants, processing 116 e-Passport applications, 95 legal and civil registry documents, and 38 applications for reacquisition of Philippine citizenship.

Deputy Consul General and Acting Head of Post Jaime Ramon Ascalon expressed his appreciation for the continued support and cooperation of the Consulate’s community partners –Seafood City and XClusive Marketing Inc., -- both of which have been working closely with the Consulate to organize outreach missions to various cities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“The Consulate-on-Wheels/Wings is a regular program of the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco, in partnership with the local communities in the areas under our jurisdiction,” Deputy Consul General Ascalon explained. “Since we serve such a large area, our community partners have proved invaluable in helping us to bring our services closer to kababayans who might not be able to come to our office in San Francisco.”

“To make it easier for our kababayans to avail of our services, we have already issued a schedule of all our confirmed consular outreaches for 2014,” Deputy Consul General Ascalon stated. “This way, our clients know in advance where they may go to avail of consular services, particularly if they live far away from San Francisco, or cannot take leave from work to go to the Consulate. Most of our outreaches are held on weekends, to make them more accessible to our working kababayans.”

The Philippine Consulate in San Francisco, through its COW Program, conducts regular annual outreaches to various locations in the ten states under its jurisdiction: Alaska, Northern California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Northern Nevada, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

For more information on upcoming Consulate-on-Wheels outreaches, or to search for a COW coming to your area, visit http://www.philippinessanfrancisco.org/philippines-sf/consular-outreach-sf/ or follow the Consulate’s Facebook page on http://www.facebook.com/PCGSF. END