What to do when the Church lost your Baptismal Certificate

It was only during the process of our acquisition of travel documents that we found out that the church where my sister and I were baptized was burned down. So all of the files from year 1992 and below were lost and in order for us to retrieve the information the following were required:

1. Photo of the actual Christening
(If you have a photo of the church back drop, photo with priest, and all the rest of the godparents, the better!)

2. Official/Original Receipt of the Baptism from the Church who issued it.

3. Then they will create a new certificate for you.

I know what you're thinking. What if you do not have any of those? If you do not have Christening Photos, you are required to present the following:

1. Valid Birth Certificate (In Philippines, it must be NSO'd)

2. Parents'Marriage Contract (NSO'd too!)

3. Personal appearance of your actual godmother/godfather who will be interviewed by the parish church to tell the details of the baptism. The lady in the church administration informed me that they have certain questions to determine if the godparent who was presented is lying.

Don't even think of getting a fake godparent to show up, because the lady even told me that one foreign embassy called them to check the validity of the document. It was found out that the document presented at the embassy was a fake one from Recto.

4. They will make an affidavit of the said Baptism to be showed as proof of document.

Thank Goodness my father was a photographer and my mother is a memorabilia fan that all of our childhood photos shot in film were documented and kept in photo albums to this day. With this digital age where people no longer bother with prints for their concern is uploading it on Facebook, I think I will go back to selecting shots and printing them in picture paper to be kept in a photo album.