19 April 2017 MANILA – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) was officially awarded its ISO Certificate for the organization’s Quality Management System (QMS). The ISO Certification was formally turned over by TUV Rheinland Philippines, a third-party firm which conducted an audit of the DFA’s system last December.

“The Certificate that we are receiving today signifies that the DFA’s Quality Management System for the authentication process met the rigorous requirements of ISO 9001:2008,” said Acting Secretary Enrique A. Manalo in his acceptance speech for the DFA.

Executive Order 605 of 2007 directed all government agencies to adopt the ISO as part of the implementation of a government-wide quality management program. The goal of the directive is to “enhance public sector performance and to make government organizations citizen-driven”.

With the certification, the DFA becomes the 13th out of 24 National Government Agencies to get certified over the 10 years of the Administrative Order’s implementation. Other ISO-certified government agencies include the Department of Budget Management (DBM), Department of National Defense (DND), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) among others.

The DFA’s efforts to establish an ISO-certifiable QMS started in November 2014. The Authentication Process, one of the three processes of Consular Services together with Passports and Visa, was chosen to be documented and audited towards ISO standards.

After more than a year of training and preparation of documents by the DFA QMS Core Team, an ISO-aligned Quality Manual and Procedures was approved, setting in place a system for the DFA with authentication service as a core process.

Work towards the DFA QMS became an integrative element, uniting diverse aspects of the organization into a unified purpose of delivering services in their best form. Toward the common goal of enhancing public service delivery performance, the certification of the Authentication process synergized different offices in the Department into a seamless and auditable system.