BERLIN. Ambassador Maria Cleofe Natividad received a group of Filipinos who traveled from Frankfurt am Main to pay a visit to the Philippine Embassy in Berlin. Members of the group took the opportunity to renew their passports, while several others requested other consular services.
Ambassador Natividad welcomed the Filipino visitors and expressed her appreciation that the group came to the Embassy. She informed them of the Embassy’s upcoming activities in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Philippine-German diplomatic relations and plans to conduct more consular mobile operations for 2014 in different German cities. It was a poignant moment for some of the visitors, as they were able to participate in the singing of the Philippine national anthem for the first time in many years.
The Filipinos came from different parts of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region, known to be one of the most active cultural and financial centers in Europe and which boasts a high concentration of Filipino residents. The officers and staff of the Consular Section of the Philippine Embassy attended to their various consular needs, which included e-passport renewals, authentication, acknowledgement, and request for legal capacity to contract marriage.
The forty-three Filipinos and naturalized Germans (former Filipinos) traveled by bus from Frankfurt am Main and embarked on an eight-hour journey to Berlin during a weekend. Mr. Klaus Elbert, a long-time resident from Frankfurt am Main was the one who coordinated the activity. “I am happy,” Mr. Elbert stressed, “to organize similar bus tour activities in the future, but I know this means extra work for the Embassy.” Mr. Elbert is a known “friend of the Philippines,” as he is one of the organizers of this year’s Philippine Independence Day celebration that took place in Dietzenbach, Germany. (END)
