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Passport Blues
Monday, November 30, 2009
During my last vacation, I spend most of the time traveling. My plans had some snags that I had to extend my vacation for about a week. The main detriment to my plans is the renewal of my passport.
Before I left Doha, I realized that my passport was expiring within less than six months. I thought I would have some problems at the airport when departing from Philippine airport as the immigration officer normally verifies that your passport is valid for at least 6 months. Naturally, one of my plans actually was to renew my passport.
Since I would be renewing my passport, we have decided to renew all our passports. And at the same time overcoming the ever-changing “requirements” from the DFA officer. Sometimes, they require just either one of the parents of a minor renewing its passport and sometimes they insist both parents to be present.
As planned, we went to the DFA office in La Union to renew our passports. As we are waiting for our queue, I was thinking to “talk” to the officer if our passport can be expedited as I will be catching my flight back to Singapore on the 18 August. Everything went well as prepared by my wife, all the requirements were in order.
When our turn was called, we were asked what do we prefer, express or ordinary. It would take seven and fourteen days for express and ordinary respectively and obviously it would cost you more for an express. I thought to myself, if they can do it in seven days, why drag it for fourteen days, what is the difference. But it is useless to argue, your will just end up wasting your time. And so we opted for an express processing.
Unfortunately, the release of our passports will be on 2 September. It would be too late for my return to Singapore and back to Doha. I talked to the officer but they were unable to assist further as the new machine readable passports are all coming from Manila. We were advised instead to process our renewal in DFA Manila in order for us to have the passports earliest in seven days.
We proceeded to process our children’s passport at the Regional office and take the trip to Manila the following night.
Me and my wife took the 10pm trip to Manila and managed to reached DFA head office at about 5am. We thought that we were early but when we reached the holding area, the basketball court which serves as the holding area was already a third full. When they distributed queue number I was already at number 119. By the time they opened the counters, the applicants already spilled the holding area.
God knows what number we would be holding if we took a breakfast upon arrival at the bus terminal. Hungry and thirsty, we are not able to leave our lines otherwise we will just be having unnecessary arguments with fellow applicant if they thought we are cutting the queue. Fortunately enough, my wife has a bottle of water with her that we shared during this ordeal.
Once the counter was opened, the process (step by step procedure) was rather smooth until we reached the third step. We were asked again if we prefer express or ordinary. I asked the staff if they can process it in three days. He said it can be done but I need to talk to the officer in charge, in the meantime he put and marked my paper as express. He told me where to find the officer in charge and off I go.
When I was talking to the officer in charge and explained to her my situation, she rudely replied that it can be done but how would she know if I am really a resident in Singapore. So, we showed our Singapore Identification Card to satisfy her that we are indeed a permanent residents in Singapore. Then suddenly, she has another requirement, she wants to see our confirmed tickets which unfortunately we did not brought with us. I told her that we left it at home but she asked us to go and get it. Fuming inside I explained that we came from the province and took a six hour trip, it would be impractical to go back and bring the tickets just to show to her. I requested some consideration but she did not budge.
I tried and tried for her consideration but fell to deaf ears. And then she said, “Please excuse me, I have to go, we are half-day today”. I glanced at my wife’s watch and it is 8:30am, my wife’s watch could have been late I thought so checked my mobilephone and it was indeed 8:30am and she call it a day? Oh well, I forgot I’m in the Philippines.
I resigned and just contented with the seven day processing.
We managed to finish our renewals and my wife even managed to process other documents that I need for me to arrange her papers to join me in Doha. It was about 9:30 when we left the DFA building. As we walked towards the entrance of the compound, the queue was unbelievable. You cannot drop a pin on the holding area and the line continuous beyond the entrance which is about 200m away. I wonder, if they ever processed all the applicants on that day.
To what I heard is that DFA is issuing 4,000 passports a day. That’s how many Filipinos so desperate to get out of the country, be it temporarily or permanently. What does this represents? What does this portray to the Philippines as a country or to its leadership at the least? But then, the country’s leadership is quick to sugarcoat the reality about their shortcomings by priding itself as one of the major manpower exporter, duhh…
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Before I left Doha, I realized that my passport was expiring within less than six months. I thought I would have some problems at the airport when departing from Philippine airport as the immigration officer normally verifies that your passport is valid for at least 6 months. Naturally, one of my plans actually was to renew my passport.
Since I would be renewing my passport, we have decided to renew all our passports. And at the same time overcoming the ever-changing “requirements” from the DFA officer. Sometimes, they require just either one of the parents of a minor renewing its passport and sometimes they insist both parents to be present.
As planned, we went to the DFA office in La Union to renew our passports. As we are waiting for our queue, I was thinking to “talk” to the officer if our passport can be expedited as I will be catching my flight back to Singapore on the 18 August. Everything went well as prepared by my wife, all the requirements were in order.
When our turn was called, we were asked what do we prefer, express or ordinary. It would take seven and fourteen days for express and ordinary respectively and obviously it would cost you more for an express. I thought to myself, if they can do it in seven days, why drag it for fourteen days, what is the difference. But it is useless to argue, your will just end up wasting your time. And so we opted for an express processing.
Unfortunately, the release of our passports will be on 2 September. It would be too late for my return to Singapore and back to Doha. I talked to the officer but they were unable to assist further as the new machine readable passports are all coming from Manila. We were advised instead to process our renewal in DFA Manila in order for us to have the passports earliest in seven days.
We proceeded to process our children’s passport at the Regional office and take the trip to Manila the following night.
Me and my wife took the 10pm trip to Manila and managed to reached DFA head office at about 5am. We thought that we were early but when we reached the holding area, the basketball court which serves as the holding area was already a third full. When they distributed queue number I was already at number 119. By the time they opened the counters, the applicants already spilled the holding area.
God knows what number we would be holding if we took a breakfast upon arrival at the bus terminal. Hungry and thirsty, we are not able to leave our lines otherwise we will just be having unnecessary arguments with fellow applicant if they thought we are cutting the queue. Fortunately enough, my wife has a bottle of water with her that we shared during this ordeal.
Once the counter was opened, the process (step by step procedure) was rather smooth until we reached the third step. We were asked again if we prefer express or ordinary. I asked the staff if they can process it in three days. He said it can be done but I need to talk to the officer in charge, in the meantime he put and marked my paper as express. He told me where to find the officer in charge and off I go.
When I was talking to the officer in charge and explained to her my situation, she rudely replied that it can be done but how would she know if I am really a resident in Singapore. So, we showed our Singapore Identification Card to satisfy her that we are indeed a permanent residents in Singapore. Then suddenly, she has another requirement, she wants to see our confirmed tickets which unfortunately we did not brought with us. I told her that we left it at home but she asked us to go and get it. Fuming inside I explained that we came from the province and took a six hour trip, it would be impractical to go back and bring the tickets just to show to her. I requested some consideration but she did not budge.
I tried and tried for her consideration but fell to deaf ears. And then she said, “Please excuse me, I have to go, we are half-day today”. I glanced at my wife’s watch and it is 8:30am, my wife’s watch could have been late I thought so checked my mobilephone and it was indeed 8:30am and she call it a day? Oh well, I forgot I’m in the Philippines.
I resigned and just contented with the seven day processing.
We managed to finish our renewals and my wife even managed to process other documents that I need for me to arrange her papers to join me in Doha. It was about 9:30 when we left the DFA building. As we walked towards the entrance of the compound, the queue was unbelievable. You cannot drop a pin on the holding area and the line continuous beyond the entrance which is about 200m away. I wonder, if they ever processed all the applicants on that day.
To what I heard is that DFA is issuing 4,000 passports a day. That’s how many Filipinos so desperate to get out of the country, be it temporarily or permanently. What does this represents? What does this portray to the Philippines as a country or to its leadership at the least? But then, the country’s leadership is quick to sugarcoat the reality about their shortcomings by priding itself as one of the major manpower exporter, duhh…
Karaoke time with family and in-laws..
