MOSCOW– The Philippine Embassy in Moscow’s outreach mission team flew nearly 5,000 miles and landed in the city of Yakutsk, capital of Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Russian Federation on the eve of the celebration of the 100th year of its foundation on 27 April 2022. Yakutsk was proclaimed as the coldest city on Earth, where temperatures drop below -50 degrees Celsius in wintertime in 2021.
The arrival of the team led by Third Secretary and Vice Consul Catherine Alpay, together with consular assistant, Attaché Joyce Sychangco and SBRCG member, Administrative Officer and Attaché Arneil Torres, was met with much celebration from the Filipino Community residing in Yakutsk.
After flying across six time zones right into to the heart of the Siberian tundra, the Embassy team to set up their equipment and election materials on the same day. They provided vital consular services that have been long-awaited by the Filipinos in Yakutsk.
The last Embassy mission was supposed to have taken place in March 2020, but was cancelled because of the Covid epidemic precautions and subsequent lockdown. The last time that the Embassy was able to send a consular outreach mission to Yakutsk was in June of 2019, well before the start of the 2022 overseas voter registration period and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Embassy outreach mission renewed seventeen (17) passports, notarized three (3) legal documents, released OWWA ID cards, and received accomplished ballots of several overseas voters based in the city, a mere 450 kms. South of the Arctic Circle. The officers and members of the group “Filipino Community in Yakutsk, Russia”, the first official Filipino Community organization in the region, also took their oath as administered by Vice Consul Alpay.
“Transcontinental travel is just par for the course for our Embassy personnel to provide vital consular services to those who need them the most. There are Filipinos who cannot afford to travel to Moscow, so we in the Embassy shall bring our services to them,” said Ambassador Igor Bailen. The Embassy announced several outreach missions to be conducted in three countries – Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan – during the second half of the overseas voting period. Consul General Robert Ferrer, SBRCG Chair also stated, “This mission to Yakutsk is special to us, as it is the first time in two years since we had consular services in Siberia. We are glad to bring to the isolated members of our Filipino Community there their ballots so they exercise their right of suffrage.”
Source: Republic of Philippines Department Of Foreign Affairs