You can do ILR by post....if you wish. But I imagine, again, you can do it locally in Northern Ireland by calling into to your nearest designated office.
In any case, as far as I know, the Life in the UK Test and ILR doesnt really have anything to do with the Phils embassy as such.
(In our case, it will probably be a 30 minute walk to submit our ILR application in the Isle of Man.)
We were asking exactly the same questions a few months back. We have come to the conclusion, after consulting with forum members and a few phone calls to the Isle of Man Immigration department that we wont need to leave the Isle of Man for either ILR or The Life in the UK Test. (Isle of Man is a slightly different case but it is essentially the same)
