US Embassy in Manila closed on Jan. 9 in honor of late President Jimmy Carter

The US Embassy in Manila will be closed on Thursday, January 9 following an order from the White House as part of the observance of the national day of mourning for the death of former President Jimmy Carter. 

“The U.S. Embassy will be closed on Thursday, January 9 following President Joseph R. Biden’s Executive Order on December 30,” the embassy announced on Facebook on Friday. 

“All visa interviews and American Citizens Services (ACS) appointments at the U.S. Embassy on January 9 are canceled and will need to be rescheduled. The offsite Visa Application Center will remain open on January 9 for applicants who are scheduled for photo and fingerprint collection.” 

Visa applicants are also advised to check their registered emails for rescheduling instructions. 

Outgoing US President Joe Biden issued an executive order last December 30 stating that “all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed on January 9, 2025, as a mark of respect for James Earl Carter, Jr., the thirty-ninth President of the United States.” 

Carter died on December 29 at the age of 100.

Jimmy Carter is known the earnest Georgia peanut farmer who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said.

Carter, a Democrat, served as president from January 1977 to January 1981 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 US election.

Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world. — Vince Angelo Ferreras/BAP, GMA Integrated News