In her Executive Order 748 which she signed on August 28, 2008, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered the opening of six more regional consular branches of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

These include the cities of Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Puerto Princesa, Baguio and GENERAL SANTOS CITY!!!

Yes! You read it right.

A passporting office will be opening soon at the Tuna Capital!

Now the “generals” and the people of Socsargen won’t have to travel to Davao City anymore for their passport needs or wait for the DFA Davao people for their quarterly mobile passporting services in the city halls of GenSan or Koronadal or the provincial halls of Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat.

According to City Tourism Officer Cora Tito, every time that the mobile passporting services are conducted in GenSan, an average of 1,500 applications are received and processed at the city hall.  That just goes to show the increasing number of people wanting to leave for abroad, either to seek for greener pastures or for just simple sight-seeing trip because of the low fares introduced by budget airlines.