Tips: UK Philippine Embassy

[Moving Forward]

Just thought I would offer some information about the UK Philippine Embassy before I forget in case its of use to members/visitors. Not sure if it should go in this section...

My wife and I visited the UK Philippine Embassy in London today. We visited for three reasons: my wife wanted to vote in todays election, we wanted our marriage certificate authenticated so we can use it for a French Schegen visa application, my wife wanted to register her details with them.

Unfortunately the main goal of the trip, to get the marriage certificate authenicated, was not achieved. The embassy's main office was closed due to the national holiday/election time in the Philippines. The embassy was however open for voting. We were told to come back on Wednesday, and that a notice was on their website http://philembassy-uk.org/ stating it was closed (I never saw it on there..at the very least I can't find this message on the homepage).

Also, at the CFO seminar my wife attended in Manila she was given a completely different address and website url for the embassy. This didn't cause us problems as I checked online before we left. At the seminar, my wife was also told to register at the embassy once she arrived. However, after speaking to embassy staff there is no such requirement.

A final thing we found out today was that in order to vote, you must change your voting address to your new address in the UK before you leave the Philippines (or when you go back) before you can vote here.

On a more positive note, my wife got to speak some tagalog to people in the embassy and on the coach journey back we met a filipina who lives local to us. She seemed like a pleasant lady - we will be meeting up with her and her friends later this month... my wife was delighted as she has only been here 8 days and is making friends already.

We plan to go back to the embassy later in the week.

[Moving Forward]

Another tip for visiting the Philippine Embassy! which we visited again today. We live on the south coast and decided to drive in. Even after the fuel costs, parking & congestion charges it worked out about the same as going by coach and half the price by train.

There were a few available parking spaces by the embassy, and the parking was 4.40 an hour. We left after 10 am to avoid the rush hour traffic and in under 2 hours we had driven to the embassy from Bournemouth. I've always avoided taking the car into London in the past, but I will certainly consider doing this again especially for weekday trips like this where we need to only spend an hour or so before heading back.